Eco-nostalgia in Popular Turkish Cinema

Book Summary: Ecomedia: Key Issues is a comprehensive textbook introducing the burgeoning field of ecomedia studies to provide an overview of the interface between environmental issues and the media globally. Linking the world of media production, distribution, and consumption to environmental understandings, the book addresses ecological meanings encoded in media texts, the environmental impacts of media production, and the relationships between media and cultural perceptions of the environment. [From the publisher

Moving Stills: The Idea of Nature in New Turkish Cinema

Environmental issues started to find place in Turkish films from 1950’s, but in the period after 1990’s, there was a rise in the films that embody an ‘intuitive approach’ to nature, mostly in the narratives that are not necessarily focusing on environmental themes. This chapter examines the shifting ecological understandings in Turkish film history and focus on realist art house films of this ongoing period of New Turkish Cinema. These films follow stories evolving around issues of non-belonging and identity as they portray an external nature in rural contexts, mainly from an outsider perspective of urbanite directors and characters. It is claimed that they build up a cinematographic eco-awareness, while at the same time create a binary between nature and society, opposite to the ecological discourse that calls for a relational approach. Taking examples from the films of internationally acclaimed directors such as Reha Erdem, Nuri Bilge Ceylan and Semih Kaplanoğlu, the idea of nature that these films promote in a social context is discussed considering debates on urban-rural dichotomy in contemporary Turkey.Carson Fellowship, Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, Münih Ludwig Maximilian Üniversitesi, 2017-201

Greening the Screen: An Environmental Challenge

Environmental themes and representations on screen are examined as a part of environmental social studies and can be considered a way of creating awareness of environmental issues. However, how often do we consider the environmental impact of a film or television shoot as an industrial process? In this article, I examine the sustainability practices in the motion picture industry and challenges to that by focusing on the British film and television industry as a case study. Using the interviews with industry representatives and some case studies, I discuss the possibilities of creating a change in behavior in the film industry, not only in terms of embedding green measures but also reconstituting industrial mechanisms on behalf of environmental sustainability

Ortak bellek ve sinema: 1990 sonrası Fransız ve Amerikan sinemasında 68 kuşağı nostaljisi

Anahtar Kelimeler: Nostalji Sineması, Sinema ve Tarih, 68 Kuşağı, Ortak BellekÖZETORTAK BELLEK VE SİNEMA: 1990 SONRASI FRANSIZ VE AMERİKAN SİNEMASINDA 68 KUŞAĞI NOSTALJİSİBu çalışmada, 1990 sonrasında Amerikan ve Fransız sinemasında 68 kuşağının sunumu incelenmiştir. Bellek ve hatırlama ilişkisinden yola çıkılarak ortak hatırlama biçimleri tanımlanmış ve sinema, tarihi bir döneme dair ortak bellek yaratımında etkin bir kültürel araç olarak ele alınmıştır. Ortak belleğin sosyal koşullara bağlı olarak şekillendiği görülmüştür. Post-ideolojik dönem olarak da adlandırılan 1990 sonrasında yaşanan sosyo-politik değişimlerin etkisiyle, ortak bellekte nostaljik bir 68 kuşağı imgesi yaratıldığı, sinemanın da bu imgenin oluşumuna katkıda bulunduğu örnek filmlerin analiziyle tespit edilmiştir. Filmler biçimsel ve dramatik olarak, sinema tarih araştırmaları kapsamında ele alınan ‘nostalji sineması’ çalışmaları doğrultusunda incelenmiş, sinemada da ortak belleğe paralel bir 68 kuşağı imgesinin yaratıldığı ortaya koyulmuştur. Keywords: Nostalgia Film, Cinema and History, 68 Generation, Collective MemoryABSTRACTCOLLECTIVE MEMORY AND CINEMA: NOSTALGIA OF 68 GENERATION IN FRENCH AND AMERICAN FILMS AFTER 1990’sIn this work, the representation of 68 generation in French and American films since 1990’s has been examined. Collective remembering processes were identified considering the relation between memory and remembering, and cinema has been approached as an effective cultural medium in creating the collective memory of a historical period. It was seen that the collective memory takes shape depending on social circumstances. It was proved that a nostalgic image of 68 generation has been constituted in collective memory by the influence of socio-political transformations after 1990’s; and through the analysis of model films, cinema’s contribution to the formation of this image was exhibited. The films were analyzed aesthetically and dramatically considering the ‘nostalgia film’ studies which were examined within cinema and history studies, and it was proved that the representation of 68 generation in cinema has been formed in parallel with collective memory

Embodied Anthropocentrism in Anatolian Novel and Film

TARAMASCOPUSThe first discussions of environmental justice in Turkish cultural scene in the early years of Turkish Republic appeared in the late 1950s, under the influence of social realist movement both in literature and film. Drawing upon the subject of ‘right to water’, Dry Summer is one of the first examples in Turkish film and literature that explore the issue of social justice from an environmental justice perspective. In this comparative analysis of the novella and the film we will discuss the treatment of environmental issues in social realist works, and comment on the ethical understanding of non-human nature in a period that is largely unexplored within ecocriticism studies in Turkey. Necati Cumalı’s Dry Summer has not been studied through an ecological approach so far, yet there has been some mention of its premonition that within years to come water would exceedingly turn into a private property, in parallel with the increase of deforestation and draught.1 Considering today’s extreme global manipulation of water resources in the form of dams, reservoirs, canals or expanded bottled water markets, and the obstructing effects of hydroelectric power plants on natural habitats, which is a highly up-to-date local problem in Turkey, Dry Summer deserves to be studied in terms of its plot. But the main question here is how far does Dry Summer actually present, predicate or draw attention to an ecological problem “of an entire agricultural village faced with water shortage”