Art Cinema in Turkey

In the 1990s, with the demise of Yeşilçam, a group of young filmmakers, including directors such as Derviş Zaim, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Semih Kaplanoğlu, Yeşim Ustaoğlu, Reha Erdem, and Zeki Demirkubuz, who followed production, distribution, and exhibition strategies similar to those in Europe, spearheaded the spread and acceptance of art-house cinema in Turkey. Over the years, these directors, receiving funding from Eurimages, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, and various national and international film festivals, succeeded in financing their films this way and opening a channel for themselves outside of commercial cinema. The basis of this study is to reveal how the art-house cinema narrative, which is widely used today, began, and then to identify the points where the international process intersects with the national process. Furthermore, one of the aims is to seek answers to questions such as what influenced the art-house cinema narrative and to what extent.