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Torn is the Curtain: Early Film Cultures in Istanbul

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Volume 3

New Directions in Turkish Studies

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Torn is the Curtain

Early Film Cultures in Istanbul

Canan Balan

234 pages, 1 table, bibliog., index

ISBN  978-1-83695-263-3 $135.00/£104.00 / Hb / Not Yet Published (December 2025)

eISBN 978-1-83695-264-0 eBook Not Yet Published


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Reviews

“Th[is] book offers an original and much-needed perspective on the development of early film culture and modernity in a non-Western space, and challenges Eurocentric narratives of film history and culture.” • Ana Grgić, Babeș-Bolyai University

Description

Between the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, Istanbul witnessed a cinematic revolution that carried profound implications for the way ideas of identity, nation, and gender were conceived. Re-examining film’s potential as both an artistic and ideological discipline, Torn is the Curtain interrogates the relationship between early film cultures and ideas of social transformation, highlighting how emergent ideas of post-colonialism, Orientalism, and feminism impacted Turkish film aesthetics. Consequently, this volume highlights how early cinema culture was not only shaped by ever-changing religious and cultural forces, but did itself shape contemporary debates about identity and cross-cultural exchange.

Canan Balan is a teaching fellow in Film at the University of Southampton and holds a PhD in Film Studies from the University of St Andrews. She has published numerous articles, book chapters and essays on early cinema, spectatorship, early film theory and film cultures in Istanbul and Turkey in English and Turkish. Her recent publications include: “Islam, Consciousness and Early Cinema: Said Nursî and the Cinema of God” (Film Philosophy, 2016) and “Sabahat Filmer” (Women Film Pioneers Project, 2023).

Subject: Film and Television StudiesMedia StudiesHistory: 20th Century to Present
Area: Central/Eastern EuropeMiddle East & Israel


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