Culture, space and cinema: Yeşim Ustaoğlu films

This thesis investigates the relationship between cinema and architecture through space as a medium. It conducts this investigation specifically by observing the interaction of culture and space. Culture with all its components shapes space; therefore, it is possible to find traces of culture in space. Cinema is a branch of arts that most closely interacts with architecture, and it is a product of culture that incorporates all kinds of arts, including but not limited to architecture. For that reason, it is impossible to not find traces of culture in cinema as well. Cultural works have surfaced especially in the 1990s in the Cinema of Turkey, and a lot of the films created in this era have explored the issue of identity: characters from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds have increasingly started taking part in films. One of the most important actors of Cinema of Turkey in this era is Yesim Ustaoglu, who is one of the four founding directors of the New Cinema of Turkey movement. Ustaoglu is a world-renowned director and architect whose films have won numerous awards in domestic and international competitions. Because Ustaoglu studies culture with all its components in her films and space occupies a very important role in her films due to the fact that she is an architect herself, studying the interaction of culture and space in the films of Yesim Ustaoglu will fill a big gap in literature.