"class struggle" in the new Turkish cinema

Cinema has been an art form and a mass communication tool that contains all forms of art and draws inspiration from social events since its inception. The first screening that initiated the birth of cinema consisted of images captured by the Lumiere brothers, depicting slices of daily life. This screening took place in a café in Paris on December 28th, 1895. Directors who drew from various movements and theories included the class struggle, one of humanity's biggest problems, in their works. The social upheavals that occurred after World War I compelled directors to tackle current social problems. Directors like Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein and Fritz Lang led the way for future generations with their works that focused on class struggle, using different narrative styles. Today, directors like Bong Joon-Ho and Galler Gaztelu Urrutia are among those who address class struggle. Turkey, like other countries around the world, entered a period of recovery after World War II, but until 1960, it did not make much of a presence in the film industry. Following the coup, directors turned their attention to social issues and made films that focused on class struggle. "Sleeping in Darkness," directed by Ertem Göreç in 1964, was one of the first films in Turkish cinema that addressed the class struggle. In the 1980s, Turkey was hit by another major coup, and a very stressful period began. With Eurimages' support for the New Wave of Turkish Cinema in the 1990s, the film industry in Turkey was revitalized, and directors such as Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Derviş Zaim, and Zeki Demirkubuz turned to independent art films. Themes such as social criticism, gender, and cultural identity have become more prominent in Turkish films. From here, an analysis of how class struggle is approached in the films of Emin Alper, Tolga Karaçelik, and Seren Yüce will be conducted within the context of Marxist theory.