A director in the transition period of turkish cinema: Biket İlhan

The aim of this study is to provide a critical position and perspective to the situation of being a woman as director in Turkish cinema. Based on a monographic method (a case study) it focused on Biket Ilhan, her life, her experiences and her cinema. In order to construct a historical background to research, the presence and the (mostly invisible) labor of women in the early periods of the cinema was discussed. Then, Auteur Theory and Feminist Film Theory are discussed in terms of artistic orientation of women and their cinema to assess the theoretical references of the research. Before focusing on Biket İlhan's cinema as a case study, an overview on the presence of women as directors and their films have been analyzed since the first films in the 1950's until actual period. In the last part of the research, Biket İlhan's cinema, which is a different cinema and the personal and professional life of the director, who continued to product even in difficult years, especially those of what we call "transition period" (period of 1990's known as the great period of crisis) and works as well today, are analyzed. The Professional life and the whole work of Ilhan is considered in reference to criteria like the production process, the importance of cooperation and solidarity and her sources of inspiration. Her films were analyzed by a historical and thematic method. More precisely, social issues such as gender, representation of women, division of labor based on gender were discussed in Biket İlhan's cinema. Keywords: Feminism, Film Industry, Gender, Woman Representation, Biket İlhan