Women's New Cinema in Contemporary Turkey: As If We Were Free, As If a Beautiful Life Were Possible

by Pinar Fontini

Overview

For the first time in the history of cinema, Turkey witnesses a generation of female directors who occupy their own space within the New Cinema Movement. They claim an authority of their own and create a distinct cinema. However, recent scholarship on the cinema of Turkey predominantly conceptualises contemporary cinema in relation to the patriarchal discourse of male auteurs and recognises its female directors in a tokenistic manner. This book is the first academic work recognising this historical moment - the flourish of a women’s cinema in Turkey which disrupts the dominant discourses and brings another view to look at the post-millennial cinema. This study identifies the new production methodologies used by the contemporary female directors from Turkey in relation to socio-political and cultural dynamics and conceptualises these features under the term, ‘Women’s New Cinema’. It also undertakes feminist textual exegesis of selected case studies in these directors’ work.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781399538497
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	04/30/2025
Pages:	184
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Pınar Fontini is a creative screen practitioner-researcher who lectures in the school of Media and Communication, RMIT University. She works at the intersection of Middle Eastern Cinema and Feminist Film Studies. She is the editor, producer and director of the award-winning documentaries, Dream Workers (2021) and What’s the Name of the Film? (2022). Her articles have been published by prominent film journals Feminist Media Studies, Camera Obscura, Feminist Review and Senses of Cinema.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

List of Figures

Introduction: Şehnaz, Elmas, Mina, and the Others Who Kill the Angel in Their

1. Burning Down the House: The Snapping Female Figure and Her Haphazard Wanderings

2. Companions of Nesibe: Female Representation in Women’s New Cinema

3. Her Resistance is Many: The Accented Filmmaking Practice in Women’s New Cinema

4. “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House”: The Political Aesthetics of Women’s New Cinema

5. “Because Of Her, We Can”: Subjectivity and Collectivity in Women’s New Cinema

6. Her Existence is Resistance: Being A Female Director in the Turkish Film Industry

Afterword: Filmmaking is Not a Luxury

References

Filmography

Index