Banned Films, C/overt Oppression: Practices of Film Censorship from Contemporary Turkey

SONAY BAN, Dr.

Temple University

26 January 2021, Monday, 14.00

Sonay Ban’s dissertation, entitled “Banned Films, C/overt Oppression: Practices of Film Censorship from Contemporary Turkey,” investigates how film censorship shapes film production and circulation at film festivals, public screenings, and theatrical releases since the early 2000s in Turkey through case studies. It argues that, over time, mechanisms of censorship under the AKP’s authoritarian regime became less entralized; practices of censorship became more dispersed and less “official;” and the various imposing actors and agencies have differed from those in previous decades. Though still consistent with longstanding state ideologies, reasons for censorship practices, now more than ever, are complexly navigated and negotiated by non-state actors, including producers and distributors of film, festival organizers, art institutions, and filmmakers themselves, through self-censorship. Her dissertation project combines five-yearlong fieldwork research findings with archival research, literature reviews, and qualitative analyses of a number of in-depth case studies of films banned after the 2000s.