Turkey

OUTSIDE THE MAINSTREAM

Despite the popular appeal of Yesilcam, criticism that it was a commercial cinema that steered away from social problems and realities motivated two major movements outside the mainstream. Alongside the social and the political developments following the 27 May 1960 revolution and the liberal social atmosphere created by the new constitution, there appeared a group of films focusing on the social problems of cities and villages, including issues of class, migration, urbanization, unemployment, and workers' rights. This "movement of social realism," which was influenced by Italian neorealism, began in 1960 with Metin Erksan's Gecelerin Otesi ( Beyond the Nights ) and lasted until 1965 with films by Halit Refig ( Gurbet Kuslari [ Birds of Exile, 1963]), Ertem Gorec ( Karanlikta Uyananlar [Those Awakening in the Dark, 1965]), and Duygu Sagiroglu ( Bitmeyen Yol [ The Road That Has No End, 1965]). Most of the films associated with the movement were commercial failures and had to deal with state censorship, which had been in place since 1939.

Another movement outside Yesilcam practices, the "young Turkish cinema," emerged in the late 1970s with a generation of new filmmakers following the realistic path of Akad and Yilmaz G̈uney (1937–1984), whose Umut ( Hope , 1970) became a milestone in Turkish cinema. Many of these filmmakers, including Korhan Yurtsever ( Firatin Cinleri [ The Spirits of Euphrates , 1977]), Yavuz Ozkan ( Maden [ The Mine , 1978]), Erden Kiral ( Kanal [ The Canal , 1978]), Zeki Okten ( Suru [ The Herd , 1978]), Yilmaz G̈uney, and Serif G̈ on (b. 1944) ( Yol [ The Way , 1982]), dealt with the social problems of rural areas from a political perspective. Their films also brought Turkish cinema international recognition at foreign film festivals. In 1982 Yol shared the Palme d'Or with Costa Gavras's Missing at the Cannes Film Festival. However, like the films of the movement of social realism, these films had to cope with censorship, and they never attained the popularity of Yesilcam films.