Cinema as carrier of memory & transformation of the image of the Greek/Turkish citizen of Greek descent in Turkish cinema

Abstract

Cinema is the most efficient memory tool which carries the past into our day. The perspective of the film maker takes on significance, it can dominate the masses, shape opinions, and transmit the social traumas encountered in the past to future generations. On the one hand, the ways in which the traumas experienced by the Greeks and/or Greek of Turkish nationality minorities who once lived in Turkey are transmitted through cinema are indicators of the state policies in that period; on the other hand they constitute data about certain periods during which the relations have been shaped positively or negatively. While the image of the Greek and/or Turkish citizen of Greek descent has historically been represented negatively in Turkish cinema, it is replaced by more moderate perspectives today, parallel to Turkish-Greek politics. In this study, we shall deal first with the significance of cinema as a space of memory, mentioning the 6-7 September Pogrom, which caused Turkish citizen of Greek descent to be separated from their homelands, and the Cyprus events of 1964 followed by the exile of Turkish citizen of Greek descent. We will discuss the recent period of Turkish cinema, dealing with this 1964 exile of Turkish citizen of Greek descent in the movies ‘Sürgün’ (Exile, Erol Özlevi,. .. © Peter Lang GmbH Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften Berlin 2018.