Cinema of Turkey
Turkish cinema, Yeşilçam, was a major global film producer.
Last updated
The Cinema of Turkey, also known as Turkish cinema or Yeşilçam (Green Pine), refers to the Turkish film art and industry. It is an important part of Turkish culture, flourishing over the years and delivering entertainment to audiences in Turkey, Turkish expatriates across Europe, the Balkans, Eastern Europe, and more recently the Arab world. Turkey was the world's 4th biggest producer of cinema during the Yeşilçam era.
Background
The first film exhibited in the Ottoman Empire was the Lumière Brothers' 1895 film L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat, shown in Constantinople in 1896. The first film made in the country was The Weavers (1905) by the Manaki brothers. The earliest surviving film is the 1914 documentary Ayastefanos'taki Rus Abidesinin Yıkılışı by Fuat Uzkınay.
The first narrative film is not known for certain. Turkey's first sound film, Bir Millet Uyanıyor, was shown in 1931. Western dramatic elements were incorporated into traditional Turkish theatrical forms such as Meddah, orta oyunu, and Karagöz and Hacivat with the foundations of the Darülbedayi in 1914 and Ankara State Conservatory in 1936.
More in Film History & Movements
Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Cinema of Turkey (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Spotted an error? Know more?
Reader corrections go straight into our review queue. Suggest an edit · How this site is sourced