Human Rights and Visual Culture E-Book

Ankara, Turkey 11.-17. November 2005

E-book June 2008

NISI MASA

Contents FOREWORDOREWORD by Matthieu Darras

I - NATIONAL PRESENTATIONS

3 4

Censorship French cinema and censorship: the war of Algeria, Laure Croiset and Yamina Jalili (France)

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Eroticism and censorship in Turkish cinema in the 1970’s, Ilkin Mehrabov (Turkey)

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Winter and summer: the example of “Blood Ceremony”, Caroline Fournier (Spain)

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Censorship in Bulgarian cinema. Before and after 1989, Yasen Pehlivanov and Nina Pehlivanova (Bulgaria)

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A short History of censorship in Kosovan cinema, Blerton Ajeti and Lulzim Hoti (Kosovo)

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Minorities Invisible men and women. The representation of gays and lesbians in Italian cinema, Sebastiano Pucciarelli and Francesca Repetto (Italy) 13 Crossing borders in German cinema, Sandra Budesheim and Björn Schürmann (Germany)

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The working class in Belgian cinema, Gaëlle Debaisieux and Nicolas Guiot (Belgium)

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Better conditions for women filmmakers in Sweden, Jesper Lindgren and Kristoffer Lieng (Sweden)

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Media Ethics Media ethics in Austria: “Die Kronenzeitung”, Diana Levin (Austria)

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Against the current: “Voima” magazine, Lasse Lecklin and Susanna Okker (Finland)

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Ethics in Hungarian media after 1989, Zoltan Aprily and Zsófia Hatala (Hungary)

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II - SEMINAR DISCUSSIONS

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Human Rights violations and censorship Independent cinema and Human Rights

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Media and monopolization

46

Alternative media

62

36

INDEX 69

Foreword

This book is a follow-up of the “Human Rights and Audiovisual Culture” seminar which took place from the 11th to the 17th of November 2005 in Ankara (Turkey), alongside the 11th Festival of European Films ‘On Wheels’. It was organised by NISI MASA, European network of young cinema, in cooperation with the association NISI MASA Turkey.

Gathering almost 30 participants from 14 European countries and the local audiences of Ankara, this cross-cultural seminar dealt with the promotion of Human Rights values through cinema. Besides encouraging intercultural dialogue, the meeting provided participants with the knowledge, tools and methods to develop films and audiovisual activities. In other words, the organisers intended to raise awareness concerning the importance of making a broader use of audiovisual culture to promote Human Rights in Europe.

The texts contained in this book result from the national presentations and discussions held during this week-long event.

In Memoriam • Ulus Baker (July 14, 1960, Leningrad - July 12, 2007, Istanbul)

01

Giritlioglu

Censorship

French Cinema and Censorship: the War of Algeria

By Laure CROISET and Yamina JALILI (France)

T

he war of Algeria has only inspired, directly or indirectly, 1% of French films shot since 1955. Until the agreements of Evian, one could not see films on the War of Algeria, because of selfcensorship and official censorship. French directors were unable to find financial support if they questioned the political and military choices of the State. The apparent rejection of this topic in French cinema seems to have been designed to divert public attention away from the conflict that occurred in Algeria, and leads one to evaluate the factors this situation derives from and to consider established values of social consensus.

Between 1953 and 1962, 40 titles were censored and half of these were prohibited. Between 1952 and 1959, 105 films were stopped because their directors did not accept modifications made to them. To mention a few: ■■Avoir 20 ans dans les Aurès, censored for a television broadcast; ■■Le Petit soldat, prohibited by the Committee in 1960; ■■Secteur postal 89.098, completely prohibited on October 24, 1961; ■■La Bataille d’Alger, prohibited in France in 1966 and censored in 1971; ■■Madame Jeanne, a short film prohibited in 1966; ■■Désaccords d’Evian, prohibited in 1966.

During the war no film was made that directly referred to the conflict.

However, after Jean-Luc Godard’s Le Petit Soldat (The Little Soldier), some allusions were made to the war through cinematic media, some of these being explicit. From 1960 to 1965, one can identify 9 feature films inspired by the conflict and 12 which mention the war. Even after the war only a few films were made about the conflict – just 17 films from 1963 to 1977.

THE FRENCH CENSORSHIP SYSTEM © The Little Soldier,

by J.-L. Godard (1960)

5

After the First World War, every film produced had to obtain a censorship visa in order for it to be distributed. A decree in 1919 set up a Committee of Censorship, and after the Second World War, the Ministry of Information took control of the Commission and the censorship of films. The Commission could modify films, forbid them for minors and forbid them entirely. During the two World Wars, censorship was used for government propaganda, soldiers had to be motivated to fight, so films needed to be patriotic. During the colonial wars this censorship was preserved so that pacifist, antimilitarist and anti-colonial films could not obtain the distribution visa. In 1973, the French director René Vautier went on “hunger strike” to denounce

the existence of this political censure. After 31 days of strike, the Ministry Duhamel affirmed that the Committee of Censorship would only censure pornography and violence not political policy.

THE WAR OF ALGERIA From the 16th century until the mid 19th century, Algeria was dominated by the Ottoman Empire. In 1830, Charles X, King of France, began to conquer the territory village by village until France occupied Algeria and made it a French territory. In 1945, the first rebellions against French rule took place directly after the Second World War. On November 1st, 1954, the National Front of Liberation (NFL) started the war in Algeria. In 1958, 4 generals tried to overthrow the government. General de Gaulle declared ready to assume republican powers. Between November the 1st of 1954 (the start of the war) and 1958, only one film was completely forbidden in 1955.

“THE LITTLE SOLDIER” BY JEAN-LUC GODARD After the success of his first feature film A bout de souffle (Breathless, 1959), Godard turned to more topical, and controversial subject matter, setting his following film, Le Petit Soldat amid the political turmoil of Algeria’s fight for independence from France. The film struck a nerve, at least among the censorship board, and it was banned for two years. Whilst disappointed that his second feature film had been banned, Godard also considered it a compliment that he could deliver a film which provoked such a reaction. When it was finally released in 1963, after tensions of succession had passed, audiences were less than enthusiastic about the film, finding the lack of a defining agenda in its main character confusing, and yet this was entirely the point.

Godard responded to this criticism by stating that he was not making films, but attempting to make them, sometimes succeeding, and sometimes times not, but the effort was the interesting part - better to try and fail than not to try at all.

But, what exactly was reproached to Godard’s film when it first failed to secure the visa in 1959? Firstly, there were torture scenes; even though the torture was administered by members of the National Front of Liberation (the Algerians), the Commission considered that torture could not be represented. Secondly, the film represents a young French soldier who deserts the army. At a time when the army was recruiting French youth the Commission of Censorship could not allow an unpatriotic character to be shown. Thirdly and most significantly, the motives behind the Algerian rebellion were

Censorship

defended. In 1960, 13 Committee members voted against the film, 6 voted for and 1 abstained, the Control Commission therefore proposed to forbid Jean-Luc Godard’s film. Finally, part of the dialog announced the defeat of the French army and so that ‘lake of ideal’ penalized the film until the end of the war. The visa was finally delivered in 1963.

on creative autonomy and independence. Pontecorvo and his scriptwriter Franco Solinas spent 6 months researching for the film; using newsreels, police archives, eyewitness accounts, they also interviewed veterans from both the French and Algerian sides. They then spent another 6 months compiling the script and shot the film on location in Algeria. In 1971, the film obtained its distribution visa but was still kept out of circulation. Ex servicemen in Algeria and former colonialists protested violently. French people were only able to see the film in 2004 after its screening at the Cannes Film Festival.

“THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS”,

BY GILLO PONTECORVO

The film relates the events that happened in Algeria between 1956 and 1957. It juxtaposes the war experiences of French parachutists with those of the National Front of Liberation in the Casbah of Alger. Shot in black and white, it shows the way the French won the war – rationally by infiltrating the connections of the NFL and through torture. It also shows the NFL’s commitment against the French population in Algeria. In 1966, the film was awarded a Gold Lion in the Venice Film Festival. The French delegation decided to boycott the festival. The film was nominated three times for Oscars and it was a huge public success in Algeria. The former colonists were not ready to see that part of their own history from the Algerian point of view. The main problem during these years, apart from censorship, may have been indifference to the Algerian issue and the “forcing back” of this history.

By Laure Croiset and Yamina Jalili

French Cinema and Censorship: the War of Algeria

Two years later, La Bataille d’Alger (The Battle of Algiers) was directed by Gillo Pontecorvo. This Algerian-Italian coproduction was censored in France, although the war finished in 1962.

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The film opens with the chronological end of the story; the 1957 capture of FLN leader by French soldiers. It then covers the period from 1954 when FLN mobilised in Casbah of Algiers (the Muslim/Arab section of the capital city of Algeria) for the Battle of Algeria: terrorist attacks on French. The attack on a French policeman in the film causes an inevitable retaliation which sparks a cycle of violence. FLN bombs are planted and Arabs are taken into custody and tortured. The Arabs call an 8-day strike, French troops take the opportunity to strike, and throughout this time the French are tracking down the FLN cell groups, in an attempt to get to the heart of its’ structure and leadership. Ultimately, they succeed; the French destroy the FLN in Algiers and ‘win’ the battle. The film ends with revival of revolutionary spirit in the Casbah in 1962; independence is just around the corner. ©The Battle of Algiers by G. Pontecorvo (1962)

The film was sponsored by Yacef Saadi, the FLN leader of Algiers units during war, but Pontecorvo insisted

CONCLUSION In 1960 a French magazine, L’Express, conducted an investigation on ten famous French film makers. The first question they asked was: “If there was no censorship, would you like to make a film about the Algerian War?” Directors such as Chabrol, Truffaut, Clair, answered that they did not have specific ideas on the subject.

The topics they proposed were only about French people. But at the same time, in September 1960, 121 artists signed a manifesto to justify their refusal to take weapons against Algerian People.

On the other hand, a film such as Muriel (Alain Resnais, 1963) shows the process of the “forcing back” in the collective French memory. A French soldier comes back from Algeria. He cannot forget the torture he committed during the war. Especially against a woman whose name may be Muriel. The film denounces torture, but also Alain Resnais questions the consequences of this “dirty war”. Currently in France, ex servicemen, colonialists, and the children of Algerian combatants live together. While French ex servicemen still remain silent about their past, the others try to tell their history using cinema.

Censorship

Eroticism & Censorship in Turkish Cinema in the 1970s

By Ilkin MEHRABOV (Turkey)

T

he murder of Vedat Demircioğlu on the 25th July, 1968, drew Turkey into a chaotic situation of reciprocating murders by both right and left wing radicals. In the 1970s, Turkey was considered as the weakest link to the capitalist European countries; thus an intense struggle was run by both the USA and the USSR for influence in Turkey. This led to the military coup of the 12th September, 1980, in which the USA proved to be the winner.

During this period of bloody murders, bombings and kidnappings, Turkish cinema also experienced difficult times. As a result of the anarchic situation and inevitable rise of television, each year less and less people went to cinema theatres. Instead of going out and facing the possibility of being killed, families were choosing to stay in their warm houses to watch TV. Revenues of cinema theatres dropped significantly at the beginning of the ’70s, and to avoid bankruptcy cinema owners tried different ways to attract audiences. The most successful way to draw people into cinemas was by screening erotic films.

This trend started with the erotic Italian comedies by Lando Buzzanca, and erotic German film series such as the Schulmädchen-Report.

These films produced high profits, and so Turkish directors also began to shoot erotic films. At the beginning of this trend, actresses who appeared nude on screen tended to be foreign, like Eva Bender, Estella Blain, Daniella Giardano, Sonia Viviani.

However, with increasing profits and the revolution of sexual freedom in the 1970s, Turkish actresses also started to appear in erotic films.

Eroticism was seen as the only way to help cinema out of the crisis it was experiencing; even famous actors and actresses started taking parts in erotic films, because other genres did not achieve anything like the revenues of erotic films.

(1) Feri Cansel (2) SchulmädchenRepot, a German ‘sex report film’ series (1970-1980)

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During this period interesting things also happened to the relationship between cinema and the right wing government in Turkey. It appeared as though the government itself was supporting erotic films. One can reach this conclusion after seeing advertisements and reports produced of new erotic films in newspapers which were known to have close relations to the ruling bodies; on a number of occasions adverts and reports even appeared in Resmi Gazete, the official State newspaper.

Even the Censorship Council, which mercilessly censored the slightest signs of ‘leftism’ in films, and which caused cancellation of the 16th Antalya Film Festival in 1979, was tolerant towards erotic films.

Towards the end of the 70’s, many left wing actors and actresses started playing in erotic films, thus bringing left wing perspectives into films.

Some of the erotic films of the period starring Ali Poyrazoğlu, Mete Inselel, Seher Şeniz, Feri Cansel, etc., have an extremely strong antiorder and anti-State character; so much so that these can be examined in separate sociological studies. In almost all her films Arzu Okay plays a working class girl, who is seduced by the son of a rich factory owner, etc. This trend can be compared to the early 1970s in the USA where intellectuals such as Ron Jeremy supported porn films in the name of free speech.

‘‘Sex was seen as the only way of discharging youth of its radicalism ’’.

After the military coup of 1980, eroticism was once again strictly forbidden. At this time the revolutionary potential of the nude female body was considered to be too dangerous by the conservative military.

Critics such as Laura Mulvey expressed this in frank terms: “The current social order, on which a capital-intensive creative industry like film is highly dependent, is patriarchal and is represented by the active, mature, robust, ascetic, male body. That order is threatened by the female body, which is reduced to a passive object in most films. But at the same time female bodies constitute a source of viewing pleasure, voyeuristic and appealing to instinctive reactions. They are harmless as long as they can be contained and did not become a real threat.”

Those years witnessed the rise of ‘arabesque exploitation’ films in which women were caricaturized as second class creatures that lose everything if they are not virgins. Before the coup, arabesque films were often censored because of the mildly anarchic character of arabesque music, which can be compared to rock music and its leftist anti-State tendencies.

Looking back at that period one can observe that producers earned reasonable incomes, and that male actors were able to survive with only slight damage to their reputations which was soon forgotten.

The real victims of the period were the actresses many of whom met with tragic ends. Seher Seniz committed suicide; Feri Cansel was killed by her fiancé. The only survivor was Arzu Okay who suffered deep psychological problems, from which she eventually recovered.

Censorship

Winter and Summer: the Example of ‘‘Blood Ceremony’’

By Caroline FOURNIER (Spain)

C

eremonia Sangrienta (Blood Ceremony), a film by Jorge Grau, 1972, belongs to the category of vampire horror films. It was shot twice and two different versions were produced, a Spanish one and an English one. The Filmoteca Española in Madrid stores a variety of material relating to the film, including the two versions, and the cuts made by the director. A note in one of the cutting boxes identifies two rolls of film as «winter» and «summer». One cut is from the English version, and the other from the Spanish. Comparing these two rolls, one can see that in the «winter» roll the scenes were filmed clothed (1 & 3); whilst in the «summer» roll, the same scenes are presented but nude (2 & 4). Meaning the same scenes were shot twice, but once nude and once clothed, and that the English version includes the naked shots, and the Spanish version does not.

‘‘Censorship in Spain during the Franco dictatorship was nearly always linked to the morals of Catholicism, nudes especially were censored, they were called ‘destapes’

(1)

’’

Often censorship cuts were not justified and depended heavily on the censor’s mood. This was a general phenomenon relating to «horror» films and Spanish censorship created a new form of shooting. The directors made two versions of films, one for the Spanish national audience and another for international distribution, in which they put as many erotic scenes as possible. Erotic horror films especially with vampires and naked women became a true cinematographic phenomenon; in particular the hundreds of films by Jesus Franco blend vampirism and sex. Nudes were essential to the value of this kind of films because they demonstrated a freedom of expression that did not exist in Spain. This fight was not political but a transgression of censorship based on restrictive moral values.

On the right and on the following page, film stills from Blood ceremony, ‘winter’ (1 & 3) and ‘summer’ (2 & 4) versions.

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La Ceremonia Sangrienta and Blood Ceremony are both versions of the same film, shot at the same time, but the end result is two different films. The presence of nudes in the English version changes the meaning of many of the scenes: the film is not simply a vampire film, it is erotic; blood violence and sex are all interlinked. The synopses of the two films written by the production company for the two versions are also different.

In the Spanish version, Karl, the husband of the Marquise, begins murdering young women to provide his wife with blood baths, but he begins to find death his only pleasure. The Marquise is frightened by

(2)

his obsession for death and for this reason she kills him. In the English version, Karl starts by murdering maidens for his wife, but by the end, it is the seduction of these young women that attracts him. At one point in the film Karl, in search of victims, discovers an unusual relationship with Marina, which is morbid and intriguing at the same time. Marina and Karl live the supreme moments of their passion, wrapped in blood. Erzebeth discovers them and kills her husband.

There is another famous case of this kind of censorship which relates to adulterous situations in the film Mogambo. In order to avoid showing adultery, Spanish censors changed the identity of the two protagonists, making them brothers and creating a relationship based on incest instead. This is one of the most absurd examples of censorship, in which incest is preferred to adultery.

Censorship part, and in some others the «summer» part. There was no particular reason for censors to allow this scene and not others. In the cuts from the archive one can find only the «winter» parts, that weren’t used in both versions. In this instance the reasons for censorship are ambiguous.

(3)

After Franco’s death, with the new government (1976), a new trend began in which the depiction of nudes was central for the expression of freedom. This style was particularly strong in the 1980s. It seemed as though production companies felt obliged to include at least one sex scene in all films, even if it was gratuitous. The freakish style of «horror and sex» became a strong Spanish feature, and the «movida» phenomenon was a means of expressing freedom, especially sexual freedom.

By Caroline Fournier

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(4)

This is why in the Spanish version of Blood Ceremony, the adulterous aspects of Karl’s relationships with his victims did not appear, while it was the central theme of the English version.

The fascination with blood and murder could be shown whilst erotic captivation was inconceivable. Jorge Grau was considered, in the period of Franco dictatorship, as a provocative director, and always received criticism about the content of his films; he was always on the verge of transgression. He always had to find mechanisms to pass through censorship, but most of all, he wanted freedom of expression. In 1972 there was greater freedom in the Franco dictatorship and it is possible that because of this comparative liberalism certain scenes depicting nudity appear in the Spanish version.

In the first part, which was shot twice, there is a scene showing the body of a vampire in a casket. According to Jorge Grau the scene was shot clothed and nude; but in the confusion of the editing process in some copies, without reason, they used the «winter»

© Ceremonia sangrienta (DVD edition)

Winter & Summer: the Example of «Blood Ceremony»

However, at the end of the 1970s catholic values still appeared in press articles, blaming Jorge Grau for his use of freedom. In Informaciones, an article dating 16th October 1978, Jorge Grau justified the use of nudes in his film Cartas de amor de una monja (Love Letters of a Nun), with referring to texts form the 17th Century, to answer to violent criticism.

It is certain that the theme of the film was clearly directed against the moral values of Catholicism, and Jorge Grau refers himself to La Religieuse by Jacques Rivette, an anticlerical film of la Nouvelle Vague.

Censorship

Censorship in Bulgarian Cinema: Before and After 1989

By Yasen PEHLIVANOV & Nina PEHLIVANOVA (Bulgaria)

A

lexander the Great can be considered as the father of censorship in Bulgaria. In order to understand the atmosphere amongst his soldiers, who was a rebel and who was loyal, he asked them all to write a letter to their families, he then intercepted these letters and beheaded anyone with disloyal sentiments. From that moment to the present censorship has been exercised among all peoples, countries and times. There are countless definitions of censorship, but the most «cinematic» is that of the Soviet film-maker Yuri Khanyutin, “approximately a man’s weight is about 80kg, but only 200 grams of them makes him a man.” Therefore after removing those 200gm i.e. with censorship we can hardly speak about the existence of a man.

(1)

Censorship has two favourite themes, sex and politics; very often in censorship struggles it is sexual and political references that are eliminated. In this sense censorship in Bulgaria is unexceptional; perhaps the only unconventional aspect of Bulgarian censorship was the extent to which self-censorship was practiced amongst artists.

This phenomenon can be explained with reference to Bulgaria’s weak economic status from 1950 to 1989, as it made cinema dependent on financial support from the State.

During this period only five films from the official government database were not screened. The films were: ■■Jivotut si teche tiho (Life flows slowly by..., 1957), by Binka Zhelyazkova and Hristo Ganev; ■■Ponedelnik sutrin (Monday Morning, 1966), by Irina Tasheva and Hristo Piskov; ■■Zavrushtane (Homecoming, 1967), by Lada Boyadjieva and Yanush Vazov; ■■Prokurorat (The Prosecutor, 1968), by Lyubomir Sharlandzhiev; ■■Selceto (The Hamlet, 1979), by Ivan Terziev.

(2) (1) Bon shans, inspektore! by Petar Donev (1983) (2) Zabriskie Point,

by Michelangelo Antonioni (1970)

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Interestingly all of the directors were ex-partisans or convicted prisoners; they are people with anti-fascist pasts. During the 1960’s the screenwriter of the film Homecoming was the head of the Bulgarian investigation. The film was screened after the failure of communism, because of the harsh truths it showed. But the climate of opinion had changed and paradoxically during democracy the film is considered to be communist.

There are many more censored projects in the field of documentary cinema, but because of smaller audiences censorship is less noticeable.

This is not to say that censorship is not evident in other types of cinema.

For example – sometimes different versions of films have been made for the Bulgarian audience and the foreign market.

A typical case is the film Equilibration directed by Liudmil Staykov, which won a second prize at the International Film Festival in Moscow in 1983, with one version, whilst a different version was shown in Bulgaria, which was censored by 14 minutes. Moreover, there was a tendency to erase material from films and for them to be entirely remade; for example in the film Za gospozhitzata i neynata mazhka kompaniya (To the Miss and her Male Company ; 1983) directed by Ivan Dobchev, censors changed the messages and falsified the plot.

Another example of censorship can be found in the film Masovo Chudo (Mass Miracle, 1981) directed by Ivan Pavlov. The film was screened in special cinema studio, and was discontinued four days later. One of the most successful Bulgarian films Bon chans, Inspecktore! (1983), directed by Petar Donev, was censored because one of the actresses immigrated abroad. Censorship concerned not only Bulgarian filmmaking, but also international films in Bulgaria. Although most of the significant world movies were shown in Bulgaria, the way in which they were shown was problematic. A good example of this is Antonioni’s film Zabriskie Point (1970), which was cut by 30 minutes.

Another area of censorship was the translation of the foreign movies, where any element that might confuse the audience was changed.

‘‘After the failure of communism in 1989 the

directions of censorship were replaced, but the intention of hiding information from society remained the same

’’

From this we can draw a general conclusion concerning cinema: economic censorship is more powerful than ideological censorship.

Currently, in the capital of Bulgaria, there are only 5 art cinemas that show non-commercial films, the rest screen Hollywood productions, which are well-known and aimed at a wide audience. Sometimes serious films are screened on national television channels, but it is usually after midnight; this is censorship in itself. The film The Last Temptation of Christ, directed by Scorsese, is an example of this.

A serious factor regarding censorship in Bulgaria is the intervention of the State in the circulation of information via the “Council for Electronic Medias”. The media is restricted in licensed regime.

For this reason in Bulgaria there are many journalists in jail. The presence of the yellow press in Bulgaria is not a sign for the freedom of the speech. It is a symptom for lack of it. In spite of the political condition of the State, censorship still exists. It changes in direction and form but its main aim is the same, to control society and to manipulate public opinion.

Censorship

A Short History of Censorship in Kosovan Cinema

By Blerton AJETI & Lulzim HOTI (Kosovo)

I

f we are discussing Kosovan cinema and its history, it is inevitable that we first speak about it in Yugoslavian terms. Most of the films that were produced during the communist period suffered from heavy censorship. Kosovan cinema was in fact, for the most part, in the shadow of Belgradian ideology. It was only at the beginning of the 1980’s that some of the most sophisticated artistic productions that have ever been made in the history of Kosovo cinema came to light.

editing room, resulting in up to 50 minutes of cut material for any one film. The cut negatives of these films were usually burnt.

In the early 1980s, a new generation of directors and camera operators who had studied in various schools in the Balkans began to start something new. The first directors to herald a new cinematographic era in Kosovo were Agim Sopi, Isa Qosja and Ekrem Kryeziu. All of them faced censorship, as the examples of Man of Earth (Njeriu prej dheut) and The Guards of the Fog (Rojet e mjegulles) clearly demonstrate.

‘‘MAN OF EARTH’’, BY AGIM SOPI The first film ever to be banned and censored in the former Yugoslavia was Man of Earth, directed and co-written by Agim Sopi. The film was shot between 1984 and 1985. It portrays the fate of an Albanian family from Kosovo who is exiled to Turkey. The main character is expelled from his country with no family and no friend. He is no more than a wandering ghost, looking desperately for means to return to his country. The only way he can really return however, is through death.

On the right:

In order to trace the censorship from which Kosovan productions have suffered, we should start from the establishment of Kosovafilm; a body responsible for producing artistic films which was established in 1968.

Although it was created as an independent body for the production of artistic films, it was closely controlled and directed by the communist policies of the time. Films that were made during this period were scrutinized, cut, and re-written to fit in with the communist ideology.

Up until the beginning of the 80’s, Kosovafilm produced films that nurtured and fed the idea of socialist realism, always avoiding dealing with human problems.

In order to obtain permission for production, a camouflaged screenplay was submitted. It was a vague idea with no reference to any specific time or place. It did not explain the substance of the film.

The screenplay secured a production grant. When production began, the real screenplay was introduced, which infuriated the officials at the time. There was huge pressure to rewrite the screenplay. In order for production to continue, they requested a cut of more than 30% of the screenplay. The funding was also cut drastically, and production had to continue with a minimal budget. The production continued with huge problems. One of the fundamental problems that occurred during the shooting was on location. The government used various means to interfere. In one case, the police came to the location with a few peasants and made up a murder scene simply to stall production; shooting was delayed for two days.

As within most totalitarian systems, it was hard to escape control and censorship in film production. Most scripts were sabotaged with different motives. Many well-educated directors and screenwriters had to use various diversionary tactics to conceal the real substance of their films. This was usually done by submitting half-scripts; general ideas which did not include the most fundamental motives of the film.

Nevertheless, after the films were shot, they suffered heavily in the

Many other attempts were made to threaten and stop the production.

The crew and cast managed to finish the shooting, and the film went into editing. Initially, the film was intended to be around two hours and thirty minutes long. The first censorship of the film resulted in 40 minutes being cut. The commission for reviewing the film met and ordered all of the important dramatic scenes to be cut out; any scenes that depicted violence and the real motives behind the film

Anatema, the last featture directed by Agim Sopi (2006)

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Censorship

On the right: Kukumi by Isa Qosja, the very first film from Kosovo to be awarded in an international festival in 2005 at the Sarajevo Film Festival.

were censored. All of the scenes which dealt with the reasons for the scenes that depicted violence and the real motives behind the film were censored. The film had its premiere, but it can be debated that it was not entirely successful as a drama film. Nevertheless, it was very popular with the public, and still holds a record for audience numbers; 180 000 tickets were sold. The film was screened for just one day. The following day, a government order banned the film. Following this, a battle began to have all the crew and cast arrested, judicial procedures were opened and interrogations started. After a significant struggle, involving the intervention of Azem Shkreli (the Head of the Directorate in Prishtina at the time) and several foreign journalists, the cast and crew were released.

Albanian because the helmet of Skenderbeg also has the horns of the male goat. Similarly, the white clothes that the actors wore were identified as being Albanian, because of the traditional Albanian white costumes and hats. There is also a scene in which the writer sits on the beach in front of the sea writing letters. Serbian critics and journalists interpreted this as nostalgia for Albania, thus explaining why he was looking out to sea; they also speculated that the content of the letters was nostalgic. After the film was banned, there were protests in the streets of Prishtina. Politicians in Belgrade called this response an infusion of Albanian nationalism that had been inspired by the film. The film was never released again and the negatives are reportedly still in Belgrade.

After this, the film gained an international reputation due to newspaper reports. The committee gathered once more to discuss its fate. They were ordered to cut a further 18 minutes from the film, and to shoot some new scenes that would promote the development of Kosovo.

Naturally, the director Agim Sopi refused. The film was cut anyway, and re-released for public viewing. Negatives from all the cut scenes were burnt immediately.

By Blerton Ajeti And Lulzim Hoti

A short history of censorship in Kosovan cinema

‘‘THE GUARDS OF THE FOG’’, BY ISA QOSJA

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The Guards of the Fog was shot between 1985 and 1986. The film addresses the issue of totalitarian systems in relation to the physical abuse of an artist in Kosovo. The protagonist is an Albanian writer, and thus the communist government requires knowledge of his aspirations and creative dreams. In the film, the writer is closely observed by the government’s security forces (here we can see thematic similarities with the work of Kafka). The film was officially selected for the Pula Film Festival in Croatia, but after its initial screening a number of crusades began against the film. It was denounced as nationalistic, ideological, and separatist.

After this screening many Serbian journalists, writers and artists felt concerned about the fact that Albanians were aware of these issues and oppressions. Among the newspaper headlines, there were also titles such as “The Rise of the Demons”. This film showed Kosovan awareness of the past, and of what could happen in the future. Two opposing parties formed in relation to the film; Slovenian, Croatian and Kosovan artists supported the film, but Belgrade wanted to ban it unconditionally. After 20 days of screening in Kosovan cinemas, the film was banned, firstly in Prizren, and then in the rest of Kosovo never to be shown again. It was banned under the pretext that it inspired and supported the idea of Kosovo separating from Yugoslavia.

There is a scene in the film where a male goat is standing beside a dead woman. The media called the male goat nationalist and separatist, an

During the miners’ protests in Kosovo in 1989, Isa Qosja went inside a mine to shoot a documentary about the living conditions of the miners. He stayed underground for six days shooting footage of the miners’ conditions; as soon as he reemerged, he was approached by two security agents who asked him to follow them to an interrogation station. The footage was confiscated, and has never been returned.

Qosja was held under arrest for two days. During this tumultuous time the government and all the institutions were abolished in Kosovo, Kosovafilm was shut down, and all the projects from then on were closely monitored and controlled by the Serbian authorities.

It can easily be said that since the beginning of the 1990s, no serious film project has been produced in the region. Even television projects were censored and often interrupted during shooting. This continued for a decade, until 1999 and the arrival of NATO troops.

The national cinema at present enjoys democratic values and freedom of expression, and does not suffer from any form of censorship.

Nevertheless, a lack of resources, mainly financial, means that Kosovan cinema still remains unproductive and poor in terms of quality.

Minorities

Invisible Men and Women The Representation of Gays and Lesbians in Italian Cinema

By Sebastiano PUCCIARELLI & Francesca REPETTO (Italy)

I

f we consider the subject matter of the films produced in Italy in the last five years there is certainly one aspect that needs further exploration: the relevant increase of gay and lesbian characters in main roles and a remarkable interest in homosexual issues in many plots. It looks as though, for the first time in our cinematic history, not only authorial and underground films, but also a large group of comedies and dramas addressed to the wide audience have taken the matter seriously into consideration, seeming to leave behind previous “bad habits” like homophobia and prejudice.

Can we consider this phenomenon as the positive result of a long process, that has finally brought Italian cinema a major awareness, or is the representation of homosexuals just becoming more and more “IN”?

In attempt to answer this question, let us give a quick glance from an historical perspective at Italian cinema, taking the same road walked

by Vito Russo to investigate the representation of gays and lesbians in Hollywood cinema (The Celluloid Closet, 1981; revised 1987).

Russo writes: «In a hundred years of movies, homosexuality has only rarely been depicted on the screen. When it did appear, it was there as something to laugh at — or something to pity — or even something to fear. These were fleeting images, but they were unforgettable, and they left a lasting legacy. Hollywood, that great maker of myths, taught straight people what to think about gay people … and gay people what to think about themselves.»

(1) Pier Paolo Pasolini (2) Terrence Stamp

13

These words describe perfectly the situation of Italian cinema. Moreover, we are strongly convinced that the representation of homosexuality in the most popular mass-media of the 20th century is the perfect looking glass through which to view Italian society, deeply influenced by the Catholic Church and by 50 years of Christian Democratic government (not to mention 20 years of fascist regime).

As suggested by Vincenzo Patanè, who has carried out investigations following Russo’s footsteps, homosexuality in the history of Italian cinema has not been openly developed as an issue but mainly dealt in 3 typical ways: ■■referring to the topic implicitly and indirectly, usually with hidden references that normal audience was not supposed to understand (i.e. the presence of semi-naked male bodies and of manly friendships in stories taken from ancient myths or epic);

© “Le fate ignoranti” (“The Ignorant Fairies”) by Ferzan Ozpetek (2001); with Stefano Accorsi (above) playing Michele, Antonia’s late lamented husband’s secret lover...

■■depicting the few recognizable homosexual characters as sadistic and evil figures, whose behaviour is always blamed and feared (i.e. the brief apparition of the lesbian character in Roberto Rossellini’s Roma città aperta who is a Nazi and cruel); ■■presenting homosexual characters in a grotesque and exaggerated way, to easily provoke laughter and fun, in the line of a long comic tradition of theatrical comedies (i.e. a bunch of characters in the films of Italy’s most loved comic actor, Totò).

Such is the consideration of homosexuality in the large majority of Italian films up to our age, even if the conformity to these 3 traditional ways of approaching the issue has been defeated in several occasions, especially from the late 60s on.

‘‘In this sense the apparition of a figure like

Pasolini has certainly played a crucial role: when his Teorema was presented at Venice Film Festival in 1968, it looked like a curtain was suddenly torn

’’

By Sebastiano PUCCIARELLI & Francesca REPETTO

Invisible Men and Women. The Representation of Gays and Lesbians in Italian Cinema

Minorities

14

The mysterious young man (Terrence Stamp) visiting a wealthy family - who seduces and has a sexual relation with each of the family members - is hundreds of miles away far from anything screened in a cinema theatre until that time. Pasolini himself was a true “alien” to his contemporaries: a poet, a filmmaker, a socially and politically engaged intellectual, and, something that was probably unbearable for a large part of Italian society, an open homosexual.

Focusing just on his films, several other works openly depicted gay relationships, as the constant attention of censors clearly shows: from Il Decameron (1971) to Il fiore delle Mille e una Notte (Arabian Nights, 1974), until the last, extreme instance of Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma (Salo, or The 120 Days of Sodom, 1975).

Suddenly the fully developed, complex and delicate character of a homosexual man broke onto the scene. It is maybe enough to comment that the role was played by the icon-of-the-Italian-seducer, Marcello Mastroianni, to reveal the radical innovation brought by this simple, linear and refined film: the plain fact that it was impossible for him to form, like in so many Italian films, the usual couple with his counterpart Sofia Loren, who is instead attracted to him, is revealing about the usual attitude of Italian cinema towards homosexuality, and it perfectly illustrates how deeply our expectations as spectators are socially and culturally influenced: even today it is astonishing to see Mastroianni playing this part.

However, besides Pasolini and few other “excellent cases”, always on the authorial side of film industry (i.e. Visconti), Italian cinema went on mostly exploiting the same stereotypes in the representation of homosexuality: on one side comic parodies, on the other side blame for shameful crimes and perdition. Gays and lesbians were always the perfect buffoons to laugh at or the awful perverts to fear, never individuals to empathize with.

© Una giornata particolare by Ettore Scola (1977)

© Helmut Berger: an Austrian actor revealed by Luchino Visconti in La caduta degli dei (The damned, 1969) and Ludwig (1972)

Of course the situation has developed a little over the years towards more frequent and profound considerations of the topic, nevertheless, we have to wait until Scola’s Una giornata particolare (A Special Day, 1977) to watch a widely acclaimed, deep and accurate portrait of a homosexual as the protagonist of a film.

Of course the way this film dealt with homosexuality was – and still is – more the exception than the standard, in the landscape of Italian filmmaking. Nevertheless we believe such extraordinary films always open the road for many others to follow – and the contemporary “fortune” of gay and lesbian characters clearly confirms it – but, most of all, they show people a new way of looking at the world surrounding them, pushing them to reconsider their mental habits. That is cinema at its best: giving new lenses to watch the same old world.

Minorities

Crossing Borders in German Cinema: «Distant Lights» by Hans-Christian Schmid

By Sandra BUDESHEIM & Björn SCHÜRMANN (Germany)

T

he impressions of the ‘No-Border-Camp’ provide an example of how some people in Germany organize themselves into political groups and try to attract public attention regarding the situation of refugees inside the country. These along with other activities try to sensitise the German populace to the realities of refugee-life in comparison with their personal, daily routine of safety and freedom created by national borders. Obviously the signification of a border depends very much on the individual point of view, as we will see later with reference to the German film Lichter (Distant Lights, 2002) HansChristian Schmid, the director, shows in a very emotional way the specific difficulty of an inner European borderline, which divides the economically richer from the poorer states. He refers to Germany and Poland before the latter became a member of the EU, and he does so with much sympathy for his characters, who struggle for a life without hardship on both sides of the border.

The harsh reality for refugees, who have been ‘lucky’ in their attempts to cross the border from countries outside the EU, is to arrive in refugeecamps, where they are held with an uncertain future. Sometimes years go by before bureaucratic institutions decide about the future of applicants, and until then they are kept in designated housing areas located outside the cities. This political agenda of isolation prevents integration, because the German public is not properly introduced to their new neighbours. This results in the establishing of myths about “the foreigners” amongst the population, in which all kinds of prejudicial attitudes can develop. A kind of negligence also emerges regarding the problems of integration, because the refugees do not take part in the daily life of the public and therefore remain isolated.

© Distant lights,

by H.-C. Schmid (2004)

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The difficulty of this situation seems to have become one of the key issues in the political agendas of European communities. With reference to the latest riots in France, the importance of a socially acceptable integration process becomes obvious. In fact, there are already developments by social and political groups and institutions that support mobilisation by sensitisation. Alongside activities such as those of the ‘No-Border-Camps’, there are a wide range of other established and alternative projects. This range begins with governmental programs in education supported by the “Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development Germany” or NGOs like Amnesty International and ProAsyl and ends with selforganized groups of refugees such as THE VOICE.

In this context, the power of mediated content is not at all questionable. A broad variety of documentaries and reports take on topics concerning the problems of intercultural acceptance. Different subject matter forms a body of themes referring to the circumstances of borders, refugees and the political programs that deal with them.

A possible way to convey these visual treatments, and initiate debates, is the ‘One World Berlin – Festival’, a festival of media for Human Rights. Christian Ströbele, the curator of this festival, hopes to address political and social issues to a broad audience by using the power of images. But those activities and happenings do not really reach a range of people, since the audience consists of already interested and sensitised members of the public.

‘‘The main concern of alternative presentation

is to get a hold of a broad spectrum of the population in order to establish a discourse amongst the active members of society. A possible way is offered by cinema

’’

The portrayal of these issues especially in fictional film offers a chance to include topics that cease to be shown in daily media representation, and have therefore left the general publics’ attention. One of these themes, the present situation of refugees in Germany and those people who never reach their aim to cross the border, is thematized in Schmid´s Distant Lights.

This film reflects the situation around the border between Poland and Germany. The fate of many single characters create a picture of life in this region: there are some Russians who want to cross the border illegally to get into Germany, a company that wants to build a new factory, a Polish taxi driver who desperately needs money to buy his daughter a communion dress, and so on.

The moving effect is created through the affectionate characterisation of the protagonists, and their individual destinies. All of them are shown as innocent people who are still willing to do the best out of their suffering situations. Again and again the film breaks the melancholy circle of suffering and daily life and contrasts it with a kind of human beauty. This film is an outstanding example showing that even stories which deal with non-commercial topics can find their way to an audience which is used to being entertained.

Minorities

The Working Class in Belgian Cinema

By Gaëlle DEBAISIEUX & Nicolas GUIOT (Belgium)

S

ince its origin, Belgian cinema has shown two central tendencies.

On one hand experimental, surreal and sometimes anarchist movies, on the other, documentaries. The important economic crisis in the thirties pushed many documentary directors into engaging with the social and economic realities in the country, showing the main victims of the system: the working class. By showing the miserable conditions of these workers, they made society more conscious of a reality that had been ignored. Henri Storck is considered to be a pioneer of this movement. In 1933, he directed Misère au Borinage (Misery in the Borinage), a film about miners facing the closure of coalmines and unemployment. Four years later, he directed Les maisons de la misère (Houses of Misery), which is also a denunciation of social injustice.

This “social” tendency in Belgian documentary films is still alive today.

But, documentaries aside, it can also be said that a large part of Belgian fiction cinema has been influenced by these engaged documentaries.

Here we are going to focus on one film made in 1959: Déjà s’envole la fleur maigre (The Lank Flower Has Already Flown) by Paul Meyer.

There are several reasons for this; first, because this unique and unclassifiable work seems representative of a certain tendency in Belgian cinema: half-fiction, half-documentary, it takes a poetic view of a brutal reality. Second, the whole story of the project, from its beginning to its execution, talks about the way in which censorship can be applied in Belgium. This never occurs directly, but more often in a roundabout way, and is much more insidious.

‘‘DÉJÀ S’ENVOLE LA FLEUR MAIGRE’’: THE STORY OF A MESS Born in 1920, Paul Meyer showed his political engagement very early.

After he took part in the Spanish war, in the anarchists’ rows, he became a director of theatre work. Only in 1956 did he direct his first short film: Klinkaart. This film tells the story of a thirteen year old girl who works, like all her family, in a factory and who is raped by her boss. Although, this is a fiction film it draws inspiration from documentaries, and all the characters are played by real factory workers. This film caused the director his first problems with censorship.

However, three years later, the ministry of public instruction asked him to produce a propaganda documentary about the successful integration of immigrant children from Italy who had come to work in the Borinage mines, in south Belgium. When he came to the region, Meyer saw that the reality was completely different.

16

He decided to transform the project into a long fictional feature.

It tells the story of the first day an Italian family comes to look for work in the Borinage, and of Domenico, an old disabused miner who arrived seventeen years ago, and who decides to go back to Italy.

©Déjà s’envole la fleur maigre, by Paul Meyer (1959)

The film is more a poetical work than a strictly militant or political film. Nevertheless, through this story, the director shows the miserable living conditions of workers, the demise of the coal industry, and the disillusion of Italian immigrants, as well as the three words with which Domenico characterises their lives: “borinage: coalmines; unemployment” (“borinage: charbonnages; chômage”).

This film immediately seduced international critics and festival juries, and it won many awards, in Italy for example. Nevertheless, the ministry continued to disturb Meyer, because he had transformed what was intended as an instrument of propaganda into a commentary against Belgian politics. Convicted for misappropriation of public funds and disrespect of command, Meyer was forced to reimburse the funds. This ruined him and he never had an occasion to exercise his director’s talent again. Furthermore, after a short airing in two Belgian theatres, the film had to wait until 1994 to be distributed in France and Belgium.

Minorities Even if this cannot be called strict censorship, the result of this conviction had the same consequences, because it made the film invisible for more than forty years and condemned the director to silence. This story bares witness to the tension that this kind of film can provoke amongst the ruling classes.

THE HEIRS The tendency to explore economic decline and its effects on the working classes has continued as an important part of Belgian cinema.

Through films in the documentary style, such as: ■■Du beurre dans les tartines (Butter on Our Bread, 1980) by Manu Bonmariage, ■■Chronique des saisons d’acier (Chronicle of the Seasons of Steel, 1981)

by Thierry Michel, ■■Marchienne de vie (1994) by Richard Olivier,

By Gaëlle Debaisieux & Nicolas Guiot

The Working Class in Belgium Cinema

(1)

17

and Les enfants du Borinage: lettre à Henri Storck (Children of Borinage: letter to Henri Storck, 2000) in which the director, Patric Jean, went back to the location of Misery in the Borinage, more than sixty years later. The statement of this film was defiant. On one hand, it showed images of the extreme misery in which part of the population was always living, on the other hand, it showed politician’s speeches, which made very little of this situation. All these films, though in different ways, were received coldly by the political authorities.

In the same engaged and provocative style we can also mention a satirical movie by Jan Bucquoy, Fermeture de l’usine Renault à Vilvoorde (Closing of the Renault Factory in Vilvoorde, 1998), in which the director goes further than creating a documentary view with a fictional story by showing the sequestration and execution of the boss of Renault by the workers.

(2) (1) Emilie Dequenne playing Rosetta in Rosetta (1999) and (2) Jérémie Renier as Bruno in L’Enfant (2005)

Storck and Meyer have also created emulators in fictional films. The most famous representatives of this movement are Luc and JeanPierre Dardenne. They developed their reflection on this theme through fictional works. In fact, films such as Rosetta or L’Enfant (The Child) consider less about the working class than about the human misery which was a result of the closure of the factories. Be that as it may, their cinematography follows the spirit of The Lank Flower Has Already Flown. Among the similarities, the focus on human being, the inspiration and the documentary style, the extreme mastery of form, and indirect engagement in favour of the excluded of the contemporary society can be mentioned.

Minorities

Better Conditions for Women Filmmakers in Sweden

By Jesper LINDGREN & Kristoffer LIENG (Sweden)

(1)

Women’s rights are currently an extremely important topic in Sweden, not only in the filmmaking industry but, in all sectors of society. As a step in the right direction the Swedish Film Institute established a new subsidiary aimed at women directors and scriptwriters. This subsidiary is intended to give women the opportunity to practice making feature films. It is approximately 3 000 Euros and is designed to cover the daily living costs of the person who receives it whilst she is training at a film company. The subsidiary is open to women filmmakers and scriptwriters who have completed their education within the field of filmmaking, or who are able to prove their eligibility in other ways.

The aim of the subsidiary is to give women filmmakers the opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of filmmaking and to create contacts within the field.

(1) Lina Wermuller

(2)

(2) Lost in Translation,

by Sofia Coppola

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Swedish directors are also trying to tackle the problem of equal opportunities within the Swedish film industry. They have argued that politicians should put pressure on the Swedish Film Institute to find solutions to this problem. This issue has been debated intensely, but many believe it takes too long for real changes to be seen. In recent years less than 20 percents of the films produced in Sweden have been directed by women. When it comes to feature films 9 out of 10 are directed by men. Only two of the 13 awards at the Swedish Guldbagge Awards were received by women in 2003, and these were in femaleonly categories i.e., ‘Best Actress’ and ‘Best Woman Minor Character’.

© Masjävlar, by

Maria Blom

T

he number of women working in the filmmaking field, as directors and producers, has always been low. For the first 50 years of the Oscars approximately three awards a year were received by women, these included ‘Best Actress’ and ‘Best Woman Minor Character’. In recent years, women have received about 10 awards; however many of these are shared with men. The most common award that women receive, apart from those intended only for women, is ‘Best Costume’. The most prestigious awards nearly always go to men, i.e., ‘Best Film’ and ‘Best Director’. Only three films with women directors have ever been awarded an Oscar for ‘Best Direction’: Pasqualino Settebellezze (Seven Beauties, 1976) by Lina Wertmuller, The Piano,

by Jane Campion (1993) and Lost in Translation, by Sofia Coppola (2003). In Sweden, attempts are being made to include more women into the film making industry. This issue has been greatly debated and one of the current and main goals of the Swedish Film Institute is to increase the number of women filmmakers amongst those who receive production support. For this goal to be realized a change in attitude towards women film makers is necessary.

However, conditions are improving for women in the Swedish film industry. Recently we have seen changes in some statistics; 2004 was a much better year for women at the Guldbagge Awards, 6 of the total 13 awards went to women. The awards that went to women were ‘Best Script’, ‘Best Short Film’, ‘Best Editing’, ‘Best Documentary’, ‘Best Woman Minor Character’ and ‘Best Woman Main Character’.

Considering this example it seems as though conditions really are progressing for women working in film in Sweden.

Recently more and more women have been involved in filmmaking, and more films have been made by female directors in Sweden. In 2004, 10 films out of 35 released in Sweden, were made by female directors. Masjävlar by Maria Blom was awarded ‘Best Script’, ‘Best Woman Minor Role’ and the film was appointed ‘Best Film of the Year’ in Sweden at the Swedish Guldbagge Awards on January, 24, 2005.

LIST OF FILMS MADE BY WOMEN IN SWEDEN IN 2004 6 point by Anette Winblad Masjävlar by Maria Blom Hipp Hipp Hora by Teresa Fabik Fjorton Suger by Fillipa Freijd, Martin Jern Fackklubb 459 by Susanna Edwards, Mikael Olsson From the Beginning to the End by Maj Wechselmann Falla vackert by Lena Hanno Clyne Fröken Sverige by Tova Magnusson-Norling Armbryterskan från Ensamheten by Lisa Munthe & Helen Ahlsson Bombay Dreams by Lena Koppel

Media Ethics

Media Ethics in Austria: die Kronen Zeitung

By Diana LEVIN (Austria)

I

would like to talk about a strange phenomenon in media ethics in Austria with reference to the example of a daily newspaper, Die Kronenzeitung. This media is supposed to be the largest newspaper in the world. Largest referring to the number of readers in proportion to number of inhabitants - more than 3 million readers in a population of less than 8 million.

The Austrian media landscape is dominated by large companies. The public broadcaster, ORF, enjoys a nationally unchallenged position in television. Private television operators are limited to local levels with little market significance. In the press sector, the two largest daily newspapers, Neue Kronen Zeitung and Kurier, reach more than half of the population combined. Half the shares of both papers belong to the same German media group, Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung WAZ Group.

(1)

(2) (1) Kronen Zeitung website (2) Operation Spring,

by A. Schuster & T. Sindelgruber

19

Die Krone is considered to be a tabloid daily paper in which readers are rarely confronted with socially or politically critical texts or deeply researched stories. The paper is a mix of sensational journalism, banalities, regional topics and internal political concerns; it picks up on tendencies in the general opinion of the average member of the public and has a small international section. But it is this mix of everything marks the paper. For example, a shocking tragedy about a father killed by agricultural machinery will be swiftly followed by a picture of a cute little dog or a nude woman. One could say this is the case in most tabloids, but die Krone Zeitung is different because of its influence. This is all linked to one person, Hans Dichand, ‘the front court of power’, who founded the newspaper in the post-war period when there were not many alternatives, and yet most of the loyal readers originate from that time.

There is a documentary film about the newspaper called Kronen Zeitung, Tag für Tag ein Boulevardstück – in French, L´Autriche au quotidien – which was directed by Nathalie Borgers in a Belgian-FrancoAustrian co-production. The film attempts to question the strategies of Die Krone in terms of how it shapes politics and the ideology of the publisher, starting with reference to his choice of writers, for example Kurt Krenn, a highly conservative rightwing bishop who writes a Christian column. The film also raises the question of how one person was able to build such an empire. This may have a lot to do with the size of Austria, the dealings of a whole generation with their postwar past and of course with Dichand’s strategies; his ability to mix a bit of everything, serious and trivial, to manipulate, but always “for

Austria’s good“!The film also addresses quite an astonishing issue, the fact that Die Krone is financed substantially by Tierecke, the “Animal corner”, a successful heart-warming column that has made many readers donate or to hand out remarkable sums of money as well as goods. The film was supposed to be shown in ORF, the national TV broadcasting channel, but after the first screening on Arte this never happened. Since that time the TV programmes of Arte are no longer listed in the paper.

There is another interesting documentary directed by Angelika Schuster and Tristan Sindelgruber, called Operation Spring (2005).

I would like to speak about this documentary because it highlights the roles Die Neue Kronenzeitung and other media have played.

Operation Spring is a documentary about the biggest police razzia in the history of the Second Republic, in which Austrian police arrested hundreds of black people, mostly from Nigeria, under the pretext of uncovering and foiling the huge ‘Nigerian Drug Ring’, this included the arrest of its assumed boss. Unfortunately for the police and for the government, it was the Medias’ relation of the ‘success’ of the battle against the Nigerian drug mafia – and Die Krone that helped to turn it into a success - in reality it was more hot air than a real victory.

From over hundred people arrested, more than the half were released immediately, only handful actually received prison sentences, but these were mostly because of vague or unproven allegations.

In this case the government was trying to prove, with the help of the media, that it was justified in its application of Lauschangriff – acoustical spying via telephone, video, etc. – for the first time. A success was needed to prove that the remarkable sums of money used for surveillance are not a waste, but are a necessity for public security.

The film concentrates on the few remaining ongoing trials and the juristic treatment of potential criminals from another nationality. It demonstrates that the court is not particularly neutral by showing its affinities with the police and government. For example, the pieces of evidence shown in Operation Spring are mostly videos taken in a Chinese restaurant from an obscure angle in poor quality where one can see nothing but some black people having lunch and talking.

An unauthorised translator working for the police invented numerous indications of drug dealing and the court used this as central evidence in the trials. Only under rare pressure from a neutral attorney were the tapes officially translated and presented in court, no indications of the assumed crimes were found.

(To be continued page 22)

Media Ethics

Against the current: VOIMA magazine

By Lasse LECKLIN & Susanna OKKER (Finland)

F

inland is a country in which the media is extremely powerful.

Media is highly appreciated and considered as the fourth power directly after legislative, administrative and judicial powers.

This is both a reason and a result of the fact, that Finland is the third place in world – after Norway and Japan – with the highest newspaper volume compared to population.

People also feel that newspapers are a useful source of information, and rely on them for commercial information. According to the readers, pick-up papers have more importance than evening press, the so-called yellow papers.

A PANORAMA OF FINNISH PRINT MEDIA

Voima is a freely distributed tabloid format magazine dealing with society and culture. Voima is politically independent, published by a publication house, Voima Kustannus, which was founded especially for this purpose and owned by Like Publishing, Finnish Peace Committee, Nature Union, Association Friends of Nature and a private person Heikki Hiilamo. Voima was founded in autumn 1999.

A web edition also exists at www.voima.fi

There are 9 hours and 20 minutes of daily media coverage in Finland and the average person spends 93 minutes with print media. Adults spend 48 minutes and young people 15 minutes with newspapers. In 2004, 199 newspapers were published in Finland, out of these 30 were daily newspapers, this is a large amount even on a European scale.

There were 3,500 magazines published between 4 and 52 times a year, which is a lot for a country with population of 5,3 million. There are also many pick-up magazines, and the number has been increasing rapidly during the past 10 years.

CASE STUDY: VOIMA MAGAZINE

Economically speaking newspapers hold the strongest position in the mass media market. Newspapers have a 28% share of the market.

In more concrete terms, this is slightly more than one billion Euros of the mass media market in Finland, which had a total value of 3,7 billion Euros in 2003. Magazines have 18% of the shares, and free newspapers and magazines only 3%, with a value of 111 million Euros.

Altogether newspapers and magazines occupy half of the media market, newspapers themselves offer half of the advertisement space that is available.

Finnish print media is financed by two main sources, 56% of newspapers’ incomes derive from advertising, the rest is mostly from subscriptions. Similarly to other Scandinavian countries, in Finland the single copy sales play a very minor role, and account for less than half a percent of the total income. Rather, people subscribe to newspapers and magazines and get them delivered to their homes.

Support from the State and some foundations also exist, this is mainly for local newspapers, newspapers for the Swedish-speaking minority, and cultural and political magazines. Magazines derive 64% of their incomes from subscriptions, 28% from advertising and the remaining 8% from single copy sales.

Finnish people rely on newspapers. According to an audit 84% of people rely heavily on the news published in newspapers.

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Each issue is composed of a 56-page-tabloid magazine, all in colour, and a supplement folded into the middle. It has a circulation of 50,000 copies and it is distributed in 550 locations in Finland, and in 10 cities around Europe, and even in Russia, Zambia and Nicaragua.

Mainly Voima can be found in three centers, Helsinki capital region, Turku and Tampere. Pick-up stands can be found at universities and schools, libraries, cafés, book stores, and as well ecological, organic and fair trade stores.

In 2001 the Ministry of Education awarded Voima the State Prize of Information. On the other hand it has also been sued, accused of giving misleading or incorrect information – the case ended in disfavour of Voima which had to pay a fine that was set by the Council of Regulation of Press.

Media Ethics In general, Voima talks about society and culture. Sections that appear every month are: editorial, news, society, anti-advertisement, international affairs, interviews, activism, photo reportage, short stories, articles, politics, columns, science, environment, culture (music, literature, audiovisual culture), ‘Voima Test’, letters, petition, post card, calendar and comics. There is also an independent monthly supplement (4-16 pages) with a specific topic, e.g. a festival magazine, fair trade magazine etc.

03 2007 huhtikuu

www.voima.fi

plays, food products that are interesting from their ethical or ecological philosophy of production. «Voima is unique, as there are no other similar magazines in Europe », says its editor.

According to a survey made in 2003, the readers of Voima are mainly young, educated and active in society. Voima is read mainly by people in their twenties, living in the capital region or major towns of Finland.

Readers are committed; they belong mainly to middle class, half of them being students and one fifth are in permanent jobs, a quarter have a temporary jobs or are unemployed.

Politically, over half of Voima’s readers support/identify themselves to the Green Party and one fifth to the Left Party.

Voima is not an alternative publication in the conventional sense, where alternative could mean an independent publication for a specialist or limited audience, with a low production volume. Instead, Voima is alternative in terms of content, as it tries to cover topics which are not addressed in the mainstream media.

With reference to Voima readers’ consumer habits, they prefer to use domestic products, Voima’s annual budget is less than 500 000 healthy options and fair trade. Almost half Euros. 85% of it comes from advertisement of them avoid meat and the majority avoids sales, 7% from subscriptions, and the remaining products of multinational companies. They around 8% comes from two different Ministries: Abu Ghraib 2003-2004 prefer to use services and consume cultural the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of products and services; also many of them Foreign Affairs. In the Ministry of Education the Uraanikylpy 12 Sierra Leone 25 Kiez 26 Susan George 36 have worked on a voluntary basis. The readers support is given by the department of Support Törkeät tomaatit 48 Sotaisa Ketsuppi 51 Sosiaalifoorumiliite! read a lot and follow other papers, go to the for Cultural and Conscious Magazines. In the cinema, and are interested in documentaries. © VOIMA Cover, March 2007 Ministry of Foreign Affairs the support comes As a matter of curiosity the survey points out from Support of Information of Developing that 8% of them have participated to a demonstration during last Cooperation. month, 23% have taken a ride without paying in public transports.

In Voima there are two editors-in-chief, an editorial secretary, one fulltime and one part-time journalist, a marketing chief, a coordinator of Advertisers are publishing houses, cultural organisations, music marketing and distribution, an art director, a graphic designer, and organisations, non-governmental organisations, as well as politicians an administrator. Out of these 10 regular employees only 4 are full- and political parties around election times. It is also evident that there time. There are also between 1 and 4 trainees. Voima currently has is a two-way selection process so that the ads go with the general line 50 contributors; during its six-year history there have been over 1000 of the magazine. contributors. Most of them have contributed without being paid or with ‘‘According to readers’ opinion about Voima, very low pay; this makes it dependent on voluntary contribution.

CANYON PORTER

By Lasse Lecklin & Susanna OKKER

Against the Current: VOIMA Magazine

3

21

Voima is a curious mix of commercialism and anti-commercialism.

On one hand it is financed by advertisers, and on the other every issue contains an anti-advertisement, designed by the editorial team.

Every issue also contains a selection of ‘Products of the Month’. These small texts are somewhere between reviews and ads, the products or services are chosen by the editorial for bringing up books, records,

it is a fresh and surprising magazine. Although almost one third agrees that sometimes the magazine irritates them, it is still worth reading. A quarter signed the statement that Voima stands for revolution…’’

Media Ethics

Ethics in Hungarian Media After 1989

By Zoltan APRILY and Zsófia HATALA (Hungary)

T

he political system transformed in Hungary in 1989. It was the final year of the socialist system, and Hungary became a democratic Republic. The media, in particular the question of its freedom, was a serious issue. But after the political transformation of the media, parts of the media (such as audiovisual media) divided in terms of regulation.

LIMITS OF PRIVATIZATION

(1)

(2) (1) ORTT logo (2) Mónika, the most popular talk show in Hungary (RTL Klub)

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Before 1989 all sources of media belonged to the leading political party, and had to serve its interests. This meant that it was not possible to choose the point of view from which a journalist wrote about a topic, there was only one point of view: the one of the Party. This led to the fact that there was only one source of information, which is why most of the journalists who “survived” the democratic transformation have socialized in the “old” system, having no education in democratic journalism. The same is true in case of television and radio: to escape from the old situation in the media, privatization seemed a good solution. By the beginning of the 1990’s, as in all other eastern European countries, it was time for a change.

Freedom in the media was one of the key ways of proving that Hungary had become a democratic country. Political parties let the media out of their control and regulation by allowing privatization.

But simply selling ex-State companies did not lead to a change in the media; because the new owners - even if they were independent from politics - had their own agendas to promote in the newly bought media, this created new restrictions for journalists. Media companies now had to face the problems of a commercial-media system. At the beginning of this process these problems were more complex because people hardly knew anything about how to create democracy, and they found themselves in almost the same place, because they thought in a democracy everybody can say what he or she wants.

are protecting human dignity (you cannot hurt anybody’s feeling by attacking his/her religion, or discriminate against his/her origin), and protecting private life – thus saying media should only deal with the interests of the public.

There was a scandal a few years ago when a newspaper released a list of names of people who received a loan from a bank with a special (very low) rate of interest. The publication of this list of VIP names was a difficult issue because it served public interest and attacked private lives at the same time. This created a serious discussion about the borders of what could be defined as public interest and private life.

At the moment there is another scandal in Hungarian media. A commercial television is running an animation program in which they parody famous historical figures from Hungary. The Christian Democratic Party denounced this television channel because it mocked Saint Maria, and Széchenyi who is a great reformer in Hungarian history. From this we can see that the media law is not prepared to cope with special cases as it makes no reference to Saint Maria or the other parodied figures. This lawsuit is still running.

To address these problems a new organization was set up called ORTT (National Television and Radio Body) in the mid 90’s, which observes television and radio channels. But ORTT is unable to watch television and listen to the radio all day long, thus its regulation is largely based on audience denunciations. The organization revises these mainly anonymous (of course what else in Hungary!) denunciations and restricts certain media. This system led to the creation of internal codes of regulation in media companies, which assists ORTT. But as most commercial media is profit-orientated media companies know the exact limits of the media law, even though what they do sometimes hurts peoples feeling and opinions.

A PROBLEMATIC MEDIA LAW

WHAT IS TO BE OBJECTIVE?

From a liberal point of view media should be independent from any political party and should regulate itself. But as we can see, in Europe this is not possible. The question of finding harmony in the case of regulation in Hungarian media was challenging. In Hungary democracy was very young, and at this time the strictest media law in Europe was created. The Hungarian Media Law was set down in 1996 and it was largely based on the Media Restriction of the European Union (called TVFF). This Hungarian law contains questions of media ethics but on a very basic and idealistic level. For example, the two biggest issues

Because Hungary has a very young democratic system, people think the media should be as objective as possible, and show everything in balance, from different points of view. In the case of the press this is very complicated, because most of the leading daily newspapers are owned by companies that have relations to political parties. In the case of newspapers owned by foreign investors, if they sell well the investor may not have interests in Hungarian political life, and therefore may not care which political side his newspaper belongs to. But there are also micro problems. In Hungary most journalists are on individual

Media Ethics contracts, which means they are not hired by a newspaper’s editorial office, instead they have their own small companies. As a result they submit accounts invoices after every article; which enables them to sell the same articles to different newspapers. Most significantly, these small private companies are often family companies. This leads to the fact that different kinds of activities are conducted in the same company.

But, how can we call journalists objective if they are “cheating” with invoices and V.A.T? The State also plays an important part in this process, because the V.A.T. authorities, owned by the State, can make observations on journalist’s bills, and thus force them to write about things from the government’s point of view. The influence companies or parties can have over journalists by giving them gifts is another problem in the Hungarian media. For example, there was a case a couple of years ago in which a computer company gave mini-stereo systems as Christmas presents to the journalists who wrote about them during the year.

By Zoltan Aprily & Zsofia Hatala

Ethics in Hungarian Media after 1989

The state of national television is also problematic. Before 1989 there were only two State-owned television channels. The media law in 1996 has set down the rules for television channels, the following types currently exist: National Television, which has to serve public interest and is sponsored by the State and foundations; non profit channels which deal with subculture topics; commercial profit making channels (they cannot get State funding but they can apply for it if they include certain programs in their broadcasting schedules – but there is no way of regulating what they use the money for); and thematic channels, such as National Geography etc.

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Today commercial channels dominate the market. National Television bankrupts almost every year. It is always a big problem for the government to make state television profitable and uphold the aim of being objective, cultural, and serving the public interest.

Objectivity can not exist in the idealistic way the government imagines, because if they followed the program strategy of the commercial TV channels, it would mean the national channel would not necessarily be objective, and if programs are cultural, and public-interested, they can not compete with commercial channels. These discussions have been going on for years now, and it seems that there is no solution in the near future.

Media Ethics in Austria...

(Continuation of page 18) Die Krone Zeitung and other printed newspapers, including central and left wing papers, have been held responsible for the stigmatisation of black people as drug dealers since this incident, although alternative papers and politicians have tried to defend their image.

Even though at times, a political backbone is missing from these attempts. Heide Schmidt once remarked that‚ in an unhealthy media landscape like the one in Austria it is considered as imprudent to show political backbone.

However, there are some people that are critical of the media in Austria and are trying to make themselves heard.

Even though this number is relatively small these people may have remarkable influence. These may be the people who add more colour and variety as well as new perspectives to the media landscape in Austria.

01 2424

Human Rights Violations

Human Rights Violations and Censorship Part 1

(1) See “Erotiscm and Censorship in the Turkish Cinema of the 70’s”, p. 8

Speakers: Behiç Ak, Berke Baş, Tan Oral Moderator Thomas Balkenhol

T

homas Balkenhol: Let me introduce the speakers of the panel.

The person sitting to my right, Behiç Ak, is a caricaturist, playwright and filmmaker. He made a film on censorship that was a narration of the history of censorship in Turkey. Berke Baş is a documentary film director, as well as an academic at Bilgi University.

Her first feature documentary: In Transit (2004) shows the tough life of migrants stuck in Istanbul. Lastly, Tan Oral is a caricaturist for the Cumhuriyet daily who made in the seventies an animation film called Censorship (Sansür). If you would like, let us talk about these films on censorship. Tan…

Tan Oral: As Thomas mentioned it, I think that the reason why I have been invited to this panel is that in 1977, I made an animation film on censorship in Turkey. In a previous discussion1, the conditions and political structure of that period have been discussed in detail here.

I want to add some information. In those days in Turkey, there was a single channel for State television. In conditions of intense political conflict this single channel was criticized continuously. Their unilateral broadcastings were never approved. This institution used to organize a contest which was divided under the titles of culture, art and science awards. The intellectuals of that period, associations and artists, all proposed to boycott this contest. I was among those who thought the contrary. For me, we should participate in this contest, and through this contest organized by a single television channel we should convey our opinions by the means of art.

Believing in that, I made an animation film that I submitted to the contest. This film – that unfortunately, I cannot show to you – was shot in 16mm, in black and white. Recently, while I was talking with my dear friend Thomas Balkenhol, this film came to mind and we thought about transferring the film into digital media so that it could be shown at events such as this, to recall old days. Even if this cartoon called Censorship was completed with many difficulties, it won the signal award. I was also awarded a large sum of money, to speak honestly, which I cannot think of in these depressed days.

This award was enough for me to continue my life for a long time.

25

Then, a television film crew visited me at my home and conducted a long interview with me. In this interview, the production process of the film, political views and the issue of censorship were all discussed. Before leaving they said to me that the film would be shown, let’s say, on the next Thursday at 18:30. However, this film was neither shown on that Thursday at 18:30 nor was shown on television at another time. Censorship was

© In transit, by Berke Baş

(2004)

censored. Soon after, I turned this film into a book for children in the form of a storyboard by writing an additional text. After the book was published, an investigation was opened and it was decided that the book would be prohibited for children under the age of 18. A stamp was affixed to the book saying that those under the age of 18 years could not read the book. Of course, these events were absurd and ridiculous.

Actually the film was not innocent. In the film, we see a small child filming flowers, butterflies and rabbits with a hand camera. While shooting these images, this small child catches security guards starting to beat a worker. Try to visualize this scene... There are ten separate security employees in a square; they are policeman, watchman, soldier and gendarme. All have sticks, planks, guns, and arms in their hands with which they are beating this helpless man. The child films this scene.

The cartoon goes on and later, the child watches at home the films he has shot, projecting it onto a screen. Firstly, he sees the flower that he filmed, then the butterfly and the rabbit. Then the scene where the worker is beaten by the security employees comes. At that moment between the camera and the screen a police team joins their hands – like you know, paper child figures join hands – and they obscure the image. After this, a “faşo”, Fascist image, emerges. This is a figure made up of several sticks gathered around an axe. This “faşo” comes and breaks down the machine. The film inside the camera is dispersed. Then, a censorship council – which is composed of people whose heads have turned into scissors because they continuously cut films – enters and it cuts the remaining film into pieces.

Human Rights Violations (2) Atıf Yılmaz (December 25, 1925 – May 5, 2006) was a renowned Turkish film director, screenwriter and film producer. He was almost a legend in the film industry of Turkey with 119 movies directed. He also wrote 53 screenplays and produced 28 movies since 1951. He was active in almost every period of the Turkish film industry. Despite the numerous movies he directed, majority of those were qualified, and had a message to get through.

Each of them takes one piece of the film and roosts on a tree. They have returned fulfilling their duty as a censorship council. There remains only one piece of film in the hand of the child.

The rest of the film is a romantic narrative; a romantic understanding dominates the film generally. For example, the child sees a poster in which a bud rises from the side of a felled tree, the same thing happens in his film; as he saw in the poster a bud rises from the tree trunk, it leafs and flowers. The child starts to film this new event immediately.

The flowers increase so much that they cover the entire scene and even the child becomes invisible. All these small flowers remind one of masses of people walking in a protest demonstration; the film ends with the scene in which a crowd is walking in a protest with placards in their hands. I made a small addition to the book, which ends with curtains being drawn on which the word “censorship” is written.

For me it was a “bona fide” and romantic film. It was made with a traditional but useful technique. At the end of the book children are told how the film was made, this is an attempt to motivate them. This film was made as an indication of my hopes and those of the people like me and expression of our concerns and anger against censorship in these years. The interesting thing is that this film is remembered after many years...

Thomas Balkenhol: Thank you. Let’s continue with Behiç, who will tell us about the history of censorship in Turkish cinema through his censorship film.

Behiç Ak: In 1993, Atıf Yılmaz2 proposed to me that I make a film.

I want to relate how this censorship film is born. If I am not wrong Parliament proposed a new code on censorship. The Minister of Culture was Fikri Sağlar at that time. Deputies were not informed of former censorship applications and they asked Atıf Yılmaz to make a five-minute film on censorship meant to show that censorship is something bad. Atıf Yılmaz asked me whether I would like to make such a film. There was a budget allocated for the film. I said that making such a film in such conditions was meaningless, because, the film would rapidly be written of. On the contrary, making a documentary film would have an impact because this kind of things had never been made in Turkey at that time. This proposal seemed interesting to Atıf Yılmaz, though he was concerned by the budget. Finally, we pitched on a two-hour film.

26

Having formed a team, we attempted to scan all the documents regarding censorship and research all the people related to this issue from the beginning to the end of 1993. We realized that we had undertaken a difficult task. The research phase of this work lasted for one year. During this phase, I interviewed many people including members of the Censorship Council. By reading the articles or books

written about censorship, I tried to comprehend it fully. After I understood its legal and technical aspects, I formed opinions as a result of the interviews I conducted, and I wrote the script, mainly based on documents. Then, we shot the film. Having been engaged in filming for a long time, we passed to the post production phase.

Because the film had a small budget, we tried to number the images.

For a long time we considered how to classify the images and how to link them; we worked meticulously on the images, creating a time code, etc. We finished the post production phase of the film in three days. In addition, with a friend called Nimet Yardımcı we made cartoons to narrate some of the legal aspects mentioned in the film.

Consequently there were long cartoon strips within the film.

For me, examining the issue of censorship was something like an archaeological research. Indeed it was an issue with which I was not particularly familiar. I learnt about it as I was making the film. In the course of this learning I realized something interesting; that the biggest obstacle was me in the production process of the film. Why? Because I thought that I should not destroy the genuine materials of the film and so I was trying to efface myself. I decided to attempt to understand this after the film was finished.

Sometimes, the film became severe, sometimes it had humorous aspects and sometimes it turned into a radical film, making criticism in a post 9/11 atmosphere-like. But I did not envisage this at first. In fact, because the nature of the work required these characteristics, they were created by the film itself. After it was finished, it had become a film relating a lot to information. Following this, a film was made by students who felt it necessary to make a film on this issue and they benefited from my film directly. That was because it included so much information about censorship and the history of censorship in Turkish cinema. I tried to maintain a high level of information in the film; because I thought of it as a document. I wanted it to remain a document for the next generations. The film inevitably became a documentary of the history of Turkish Cinema. Examining censorship was equal to tell the history of Turkey.

When cinema emerged in 1896 at the end of the 19th century, films began to be shown in places such as beer houses in Istanbul. However, film production started barely 20-25 years after the production of the first film. This was because there were problems in that period. When the First World War broke out in 1914 the importance of cinema was understood during the war. In particular Enver Pasha and the Committee of Union and Progress (‘‘İttihat ve Terakki’’) realized how cinema could be used as a means of propaganda. In this period, cinema was used to those ends in other countries. Cameras were brought to Turkey. There is even a photograph of Enver Pasha which was taken with the camera that was first brought to the country. We can say that

Human Rights Violations

(3) Muhsin Ertuğrul (March 7, 1892 April 29, 1979) was a renowned Turkish actor and director. Muhsin Ertuğrul had important contributions to both Turkish theatre and Turkish cinema. His first performance in theatre was in 1909 with the “Bob” role in Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle.

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(4) Hürrem Erman (1913, Greece - March 2003, Turkey) Famous producer who founded in 1946 in Istanbul the Erman Film company - which producted & distributed more than 250 films in 50 years.

Today, ErmanFilm Cie is distributing in Turkey many international independent films like Super Size Me, Manderlay, The Elementary Particles, etc...

the first cameras were brought with the spirit of “İttihatçı” (supporter of Union and Progress). But after the First World War, because the Ottoman Empire was defeated, this equipment remained in the hands of “Mağrur Gaziler Cemiyeti”. Afterwards, films were made with this equipment. Production of cinema films started in this way.

Considering Sedat Simavi’s film Pençe (The Claw), which was among the first films shot in 1917, we can see that censorship was not applied to these films. In that period cinema was a new thing; censorship organ did not yet exist. For example, the film Pençe includes obscene scenes and erotic aspects in respect to the dominant understanding of the period. However, it was screened uncensored. According to historians, the first known censorship application was made by General de Franchet d’Esperey, the commander of the occupation forces in Istanbul, who prohibited the screening of this film in Anatolia. The film is an adaptation of Hüseyin Rahmi Gürpınar’s story Mürebbiy by Ahmet Fehim, in which a French governess seduces everybody in an Ottoman mansion. It was thought that French people were shown to be immoral, thus the General prohibited the film. Many of the films made at that time have a common typology: the presence of a seductive woman and a seduced man. The film Nur Baba which was shot in 1922 is an interesting example of this. The director of the film was Muhsin Ertuğrul3. The story of a licentious Bektashi sheikh is told by the film.

An Armenian actor, Papazyan (one of the famous artists at the time) played the role of the Bektashi sheikh. Having been informed of this, Bektashis raided the film set but Papazyan escaped.

During the Izmir Economy Congress in 1923, discussions began regarding these films. It was said that films which were a threat to public morals were being shown, and that measures should be taken to prevent them. Following this the Turkish General Assembly was established and two local police authorities had to rule on the fate of Turkish films. Before lots of films were shown they were thus cut by scissors by the local police officers. In this way the application of censorship started. In Article 67 of the “Umumi Hususlar Kanunu” issued on the 24th of April 1930, there is a decree stating that very young children should be kept away from cinema. Meaning only those above six could go to cinema. Here a relationship was established between cinema and children; this relationship continuously developed afterwards. Such applications exist throughout the world.

According to my research, in the classification of films the category of protecting children ranks as a priority. The application is aimed to protect children from sexual, violent, and pornographic films.

After the enactment of this law, in 1931, Muhsin Ertuğrul made İstanbul Sokaklarında (In the Streets of Istanbul), the first sound film.

In 1932, a regulation entitled “Regulation on Control of Cinema Films” came into being. Depending on this regulation, films were cut and

censored. Then, in 1933, an additional regulation was enacted and preliminary censorship was applied to domestic films. Compulsory reading of the script before the production of the film was introduced by an addition to the regulation in 1933. This regulation became the beginning of a legal application which lasted until 1986. Needless to say, the application was wrong in terms of law, ideology, politics and human rights. According to the legal system, punishments should be administered depending on a law, but in this case punishment depended on a regulation. Moreover, a matter should be brought to the court in order for a punishment to be given, but, through regulations, wrong legal applications are made possible and thus the censorship application became possible. A Censorship Council was formed. This council has components such as Ministry of Defense, general staff, Provincial Police chief.

In 1934, the Code of Police Conduct (“Polis Vazife ve Selayetleri”) was enacted and the regulation of censorship was not enacted for five years. Then, in 1939 a new censorship regulation was enacted.

The reason for this was the Second World War. During the Second World War there was great fear regarding films, and whether they could cause problems. The censorship application was extended in 1939 to prevent contradiction of the State, or ally countries and general propaganda of inflammatory ideologies. In this way, articles which aimed to protect relationships between Turkey and her allies were added to the censorship regulation. In addition censorship was applied to films which were thought to deteriorate public morals; articles relating to the position of Turkey in that period were also added to the regulation.

In this period, two films by Muhsin Ertuğrul, Bir Kavuk Devrildi and Aynaros Kadısı (The Judge of Athos), adapted from the play by Müsaip Zade Celal were shown. These films included obscene scenes for the time. This made way for the enactment of the 1939 regulations. Şükrü Kaya even gave a speech in Parliament on the subject. During the Second World War the importation of films from Europe ceased.

Instead, films came from and through Egypt. Arabic films also came through Egypt. In particular Arabic films started to be shown in the South East provinces. Because Arabic concepts were contrary to the ideology of a Republic, a particular measure was introduced in the South East when the screening of Arabic films was prohibited.

In 1950, with the beginning of multi party rule there was a boom in cinema. The generation we call ‘‘Yeşilçam’’ emerged. While only 41 films were made between 1917 and 1944, the number of films rose to 619 between 1945 and 1959. This is an unbelievable boom, the number of films increased ten fold. Hürrem Erman4’s film Vurun Kahpeye (Strike the Whore; 1949) is one of the films which received its share of censorship during this period. As you may know, this film

Human Rights Violations (5) Metin Erksan (born İsmail Metin Karamanbey, January 1, 1929, Çanakkale, Turkey) is a Turkish film director and art historian. He has studied Art History in the University of Istanbul.He has directed a total of 42 films, 2 of which he has also produced; and he has written the scripts for 29 films.

(6) Nazım Hikmet (Nov 20, 1901 – June 3, 1963), was a Turkish poet, playwright, novelist and memoirist who is acclaimed in Turkey as the first and foremost modern Turkish poet. He was repeatedly arrested for his political beliefs and spent much of his adult life in prison or in exile. His poetry has been translated into more than fifty languages.

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is an adaptation of Halide Edip’s novel. I interviewed Hürrem Erman about this film. It is very interesting that they were disturbed because of their relation to Mevlid; it was said that they were making religious propaganda, which was prohibited. Hürrem Erman argues that these were backward ideas, that Mevlid had nothing to do with religion.

How can one make religious propaganda by reading Mevlit? There is a journal entitled Tebül-ü Reşat which is an extreme right wing journal.

This journal attacked them. The film Vurun Kahpeye was censored many times. Its screening was prohibited in certain places, but still the film was shown.

Metin Erksan5’s film Karanlık Dünya (The Dark World ; 1953) also dates from this period. I don’t know whether you know or saw this film. It tells the life of Aşık Veysel. In this case the problem was that to show Turkish land as infertile counted as a big offence at that time. In the film a child says ‘did the plant die’, such is the dialog. A relationship is established between the plant and the ill child. The mother says ‘My plant has died’. They prohibited screenings of the film, arguing ‘What does it mean? How did the plant die? Does this mean that Turkish land is not fertile, will Turkey turn to desert?’ Because of the drought mentioned in the film, Erksan had to add some scenes showing reapers taken from American agricultural documentaries in order to screen the film. The film could only be shown after this change. The scenes seem absurd. Similar events occurred with the film Beyaz Mendil (White Handkerchief, Lutfu Akat, 1955) in which a relationship is established between a pine tree and a child. If the pine becomes dry, the child will die. The censorship council wanted these parts to be removed from the film, because again Turkish land was not shown to be fertile.

That period was strange and paranoid.

Censorship and paranoia have a very close relationship. For example, Atıf Yılmaz’s film Hıçkırık (The Sob - 1953) was prohibited.

There is a scene in Hıçkırık which is filmed abroad, a scene which takes place in Istasyon Termini in Italy. It is very interesting that a Turkish filmmaker went abroad to shoot part of a film, and that these scenes were then evaluated in a censorship council.

They encountered a scene in this film which they thought should be censored. They said that the shot was made in İstasyon Termini and that İstasyon Termini was made by © Susuz Yaz, by Metin Erksan, 1964 Mussolini. They criticized him for shooting the film in a station which was made by Mussolini, saying this was not true politically. The director was surprised, this was irrelevant, and he did not know that Mussolini had made the terminal. As you can understand, this was a period of strange sensitivities. Some writers

were blacklisted in this period. For example, the scriptwriter of Aysel, Bataklı Damın Kızı (1934) Nazım Hikmet6, could not use his own name. If these names were shown in the films, the films were not screened. Kemal Tahir, another scriptwriter, used the name Murat Aşkın. As you know, Vedat Türkali’s name is also a pen name, his real name is Abdülkadir Demirkıran but he used the name Vedat Türkali, thus his known name became Vedat Türkali. Yaşar Kemal told me a story - when none of his scripts passed censorship, he could not endure it and he used the name of one of the censorship officer as the writer for one of his scripts. The script passed censorship and even received a script award. They gave the award to the censorship police.

On the 27th of May 1960, during constituent assembly works, the censorship issue was discussed again by considering whether censorship should be abolished or not and what censorship in cinema was. This was an interesting discussion. Hıfzı Veldet Velidedeoğlu and Muammer Aksoy debated. Muammer Aksoy argued that censorship was necessary. Hıfzı Veldet said ‘No, if we want to be a modern civilization, censorship should be completely abolished, in cinema there cannot be censorship’. But the advocates of censorship won.

One of the interesting censored films of that period was, Yılanların Öcü (The Revenge of the Snakes ; 1962) it was adapted from Fakir Baykurt’s story with same name. Metin Erksan5 made this story into a film. Before this the text was serialized in Cumhuriyet daily and it received a prestigious award. Then it was published as a book. But when made into a film, it was prohibited. The interesting thing is that when it was published as serial or book it was not censored but the film was censored. There are different standards.

I think this is similar to what Galileo experienced. If Galileo, as you know, had written his book titled Diyalog in Latin rather that Italian, there would be no problem. But because he wrote in Italian; that is in a language which the masses can understand, he got into trouble.

‘‘Cinema’s condition is similar to this because it uses

a language which can be understood by the masses, it is seen as something dangerous

’’

Therefore, a literary work of art which is not prohibited until that time can be suddenly be prohibited. I do not know whether it is true or not, I used this expression depending on the people that I interviewed in my film. Apparently it was said to Cemal Gürsel that this film was prohibited. Cemal Gürsel watched the film, and said “this is a very good film, it relates the problems of the country”, and so he decontrolled the film. I think that the most important event

Human Rights Violations

regarding censorship in Turkish cinema happened with a lawsuit filed by the Worker’s Party of Turkey (TİP) in 1963. The TİP claimed that censorship was unconstitutional in this case. They said that it was illegal. They brought in an agenda which I just mentioned. If there is an offence, a punishment can be given. But, a punishment cannot be given in case of a potential offence. However, what was done in the case of cinema was to punish someone according to a set of instructions, in an extra-judicial way a person was prohibited from exercising his or her rights. This is against the fundamental principles of law.

The TİP said the system could only be just in the following way: the film is screened, if a criminal allegation is made against this film, a lawsuit must be filed against this film and the court must decide whether the film should be prohibited or not. All of the applications made until that time had been wrong, they were unconstitutional and against the principle of the division of powers. As matter of fact the argument of the TİP was correct, but unfortunately, the constitutional court rejected the case of TİP, taking a partial decision.

These applications hardly changed in 1986; the prohibiting acts continued in the period of Mükerrem Taşçıoğlu. For example, Gurbet Kuşları (Birds of Exile, by Halit Refig - 1964) which is from that period was prohibited because in the film Göksel Ersoy and his girlfriend take each other by hand and he kisses her on her cheek whilst wearing official dress. They said that a man in official dress cannot kiss a woman.

The other film that underwent interesting experiences was Hudutların Kanunu (Border Law ; 1966) which was shot by Lütfi Ömer Akad and in which Yılmaz Güney acted. An addition was made to the end of this film following the demand of the Censorship Council. I want to give this as an example; Alim Şerif Onaran was the president of the Censorship Council. A smuggler, Yılmaz Güney, dies at the end of the film; his child comes next to him. The censorship council said, at the end of the film the smuggler must say before dying: “Aman evladım sen bu kötü yola düşme, bak ben ölüyorum, sen adam ol tamam mı, falan desin”. They told them to change end of the film. In the report of censorship the signature of Alim Şerif Onaran can be seen, I found that report. It is terrible that censorship councils intervened directly with the scripts of the films and demanded that the directors cut parts of a film or add new parts to a film.

In the 1970’s, society was more politicized following the events of 1968. In that period the film Umut, the screening of which depended on the decision of Council of State, attracted public attention. It was taken abroad illegally, and whilst it was prohibited in Turkey, it won an award abroad. All of this indicated the onset of a new politicized

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© Umut (Hope) by Yilmaz Güney, 1970

period in Turkish cinema. At that time the 12th of March military coup occurred. Those who carried out the coup formed a council to make new regulations for censorship in cinema. There were people such as Nejat Özön, Onat Kutlar in that council. They initiated a decision to abolish censorship, but then the General Staff issued a new censorship law. In fact, the real council was the General Staff.

The law they enacted is unbelievable.

Released in 1974, Tunç Okan’s film, Otobüs suffers from this law.

Otobüs was prohibited on both Swedish television and in Turkey. It is interesting in the sense that it was prohibited in both countries.

Swedish television said that the film humiliated Swedish people. But, the film was made in Germany. For example, in the film a Turkish workers pisses into a lake, then sits to eat. They said that Turkish people do not sit to eat before washing their hands. In another scene a bus turns left on a road where there is traffic sign reading “No turn to the left”, they said that it would be said that Turkish people violate traffic rules. Many ridiculous things like this occurred. In this way they attributed different meanings to everything. They made big issues out of nothing...

During right-left conflicts at the end of the 70’s, especially in the period of propaganda of supporters of the coup, families avoided going to the cinemas. That is, families could not go to cinema anymore. This was because, people could not go outside. When cinema theatres were no longer a secure place, the period of sex films started. Taking place between 1974 and 1979, it was a true sociological phenomenon.

Theatre artists we know very well today such as Ali Poyrazoğlu, Hadi Çaman started to play in sex films and comedies. These films were written in the following way in order to pass censorship: at first a normal script was written for the censorship council; then the film

Human Rights Violations

was made by adding some other parts. These are films such as Civciv Çıkacak Kuş Çıkacak.

After the sex film period the 1980 coup d’etat occured. One of the most important events in the history of censorship in Turkish cinema during 1980 coup d’etat was the burning of the film Yorgun Savaşçı (Tired Warrior, Halit Refig - 1979). In a literal sense for the first time a burning punishment was given to a film.

Before, in the 1960’s a similar case occurred with Alp Zeki Heper’s film. I want the people who are interested in cinema to push the cinema-television institute to show this film, because the censorship applied to this film continues. Alp Zeki Heper studied in IDHEC [Paris Institute for Advanced Cinematographic Studies] in France, as did the other director Ömer Kavur. It is also unbelievable that my film is still censored. When I was making the film Sansür, I could barely take two or three parts of it. Alp Zeki Heper’s films Soğuk Gecenin Aşk Hikayeleri (Love Stories of the Pale Night - 1966) and Yorgun Savaşçı should be considered as the primary objects towards which the rage of censorship was directed, in the whole history of censorship.

On the 12th of September the government decided to burn the film Yorgun Savaşçı for some paranoid reason; they said that Ege people were shown to support the Turkish War of Independence, or they mentioned other things about Armenians. The interesting thing was that they hesitated before burning the film and wanted to have the film seen by others.

I think they tried to buy a partner for their crimes. Thus, they had the film watched by a group of intellectuals. After they watched it, they decided to burn the film. But perhaps with the insistence of some of the people in this group, one copy of the film was kept in the MİT archive.

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They burnt the original one, but kept the copy in the MIT archive.

Perhaps you can remember that HBB television decided to make this film again. While HBB was screening its own film, TRT said we already have a film entitled Yorgun Savaşçı.

When TRT and HBB entered into competition, they took the copy of the film from MİT archive and screened that film at the same time.

I interviewed İhsan Beriç about this film. İhsan Beriç is the general who decided that the film should be burnt.

I asked him which films he liked among these films, he replied “the one that we burnt was better”.

I want to stop here. This is because censorship stories are like problems that crop up intermittently without © Büyük Adam Küçük Aşk san (Hejar) 2001 ever being resolved. These applications are continuing today. For example think about the events surrounding the films Büyük Adam Küçük Aşk (Big Man, Little Love, Handan Ipekçi - 2001).

The important thing is that in 1986, the censorship application, which was dependent on the regulation, was abolished completely and censorship was no longer something to do with the police. I think the minister of culture in that period was Mükerrem Taşçıoğlu.

After him, a decree was proposed whereby films could be prohibited by an administrative decision. This new application meant it was not necessary for films to be seen by a censorship council before screening; you screened the film, but the governorship of that province had the right to prohibit the screening of the film, thus censorship was dependent on governorship. In this way, if you, as a director, wanted to screen your film, you could file a lawsuit if it was prohibited. As far as I know, Ali Özgentürk, the director of the film Su Da Yanar (Water Also Burns - 1987) had to file a lawsuit in several places. Certainly, this caused an absurd application process.

Now, censorship can be applied with an administrative decision.

Today, the same application continues. However, at least, we do not have to have our scripts controlled by a censorship council as before.

Human Rights Violations

Human Rights Violations and Censorship Part 2

Speakers: Behiç Ak, Berke Baş, Tan Oral Moderator: Thomas Balkenhol

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homas Balkenhol: Finally, I want to discuss one more issue briefly. In the history of Turkish cinema, everything is being done or has been done - everything is possible. In the 1980’s, in the coup period the films Hakkari’de Bir Mevsim (A Season in Hakkari, 1983) , and Yılmaz Güney’s, Yol (The Way; 1982), were made. Demonstrating that one can do many things but then one gets into trouble. The film Büçük Adam Küyük Aşk (Big Man, Little Love, 2001) received awards and was screened, but when it was to be screened on television a lawsuit was filed against the film.

The same thing happened with the film Salkım Hanım’ın Taneleri (Mrs. Salkim’s Diamonds, by Tomris Giritlioglu, 1999); it won an award and was screened in cinemas for a while, but when it was screened on television, that is when it reached a mass audience, a suit was brought.

From this event, a discussion started based on the assumption that the film ‘portrays the army badly’.

the documentary maker represent it, how can he/she be an instrument of remembrance? In these days, in these months, I think about this issue. In Turkey, or in other societies which have a nation-state system, in religious societies auto-censorship is diagnostic within artistic production. Last week I was involved in a panel in New York in which film makers from the Middle East participated. All the subjects broached related to taboos. There are many taboos in our societies. Are we able to deal with them? How can we do it? Can we portray these issues?

How can we find the truth when we interview people, and when we explain the issues to other people?

All of these issues come to mind with many questions. In our country for example, the military is a taboo, Kurdish issues are taboo, the Censorship stories are always funny, tragicomic Armenian problem is a taboo, gender, or nonsense; these types of discussions were and masculinity are taboo. That is, held regarding this film. The problem is that: there are various factors which shape every kind of film can be made, and if one our opinions. There are political and has the chance, one can screen them; but how ideological discourses brought out by Yimaz Güney in front of the poster of his film does one overcome the troubles this incurs? the historical proces. As I mentioned “Yol”, the Palme d’Or Winner in 1983 © FilmReference The work of the documentary film maker can before we live within the ideology of be impeded, especially as he/she works in a the nation state; thus there are serious medium which can reach the public. One can ambiguities preventing expression shoot, but one cannot show everything, one can show certain things of anti-state views and the expression of personal stories which in a certain way. contradict the state.

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Berke Baş: I want to continue from the point where Mr. Behiç has left off. In such a general framework, how do we, as film and documentary makers portray certain issues? Do we apply autocensorship independently of the authorities, police and censorship councils? I want to discuss this issue. Recently, I read in Mr. Tan’s book Censorship, “the flower is beautiful, it should not be forgotten.”

That is the camera can film, can show flowers and birds, but if the thing filmed is dark, ugly, tragic, or takes place in the past, how can

Here, the issue that I am interested is ‘How we, as film makers, as documentary makers limit ourselves?’; because we want to be accepted in this country, and because we want our works to be presented in this country. Furthermore, the people that we work with, our characters also apply autocensorship, because there is such as thing as social memory, and alongside this there is social amnesia. I believe this is the situation in Turkey. To forget, to force forgetfulness, shows how our ties with the past are broken.

Human Rights Violations

In particular, with the establishment of the Republic of Turkey we have witnessed the increase of policies attempting to break our ties with the past. I want to give as an example the prohibition of the screening of Arabic films in southeastern cities, which forces the minorities speaking Arabic, and living there, to speak Turkish. Another example is the break down of our relation to Ottoman Literature, selected information is presented to us as real historical documents.

Therefore, the most important sources that we, as documentary makers, can rely upon are subjects that are obtained through oral history. Things that people have told us that have been transferred from one generation to another. But to what extent is this possible and to what extent can this be realized? I wonder whether the stories that people tell, and transfer from generation to generation, are subject to fabrication and change. There is an ideology of society, we have a certain way of perceiving, and our points of view are shaped through our education. This can influence our perception of events. This can be seen especially in the stories of the minorities. The stories that they told are often softened, or information is skipped completely. I wonder whether we have the opportunity to reach the truth in such working conditions.

My husband is a journalist and so I travel around many parts of Turkey.

I have been to southeastern Turkey and to eastern Turkey; and I have passed a long time in the Black Sea region, where I had the chance to research many topics. I conducted face to face interviews with people.

As Mr. Behiç mentioned, police control in these regions is not as it was in the past, there is relatively unrestricted atmosphere. In these conditions you can work easily, but you also can get into trouble. For example, you sometimes come across people who want to tell their stories, who can express the events they experienced clearly, but when the recording phase comes, everything changes.

Recording still creates fear in people. There is a fear of being documented; there is a fear of being blacklisted. The stories told may be a family story, or something experienced in childhood, but this does not make a difference, whilst scenes are being cut from films based on the mentality ‘do the young trees ever die?’ the fear of the people is inevitable. I think this is a very frightening situation. What kind of a documentary can be made in these conditions, when we do not have the opportunity to narrate an historical process with all of its parts or documents? We thus cope with a filtered version of history.

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For example, I was recently working on a documentary about my city, Ordu. Although I grew up in the same streets as my father the difference of 30 years makes it seem as though we have grown up in different streets, different cities, different countries and different environments. Ordu is said to have been a cosmopolitan city in the

50’s and 60’s, however one cannot see traces of this now. It is also said that both Armenian and Greek populations lived in the city. We hear that they had a significant contribution to the artistic and cultural life of the city, that there were churches, Armenian schools, and Greek theatres. But we have grown up completely isolated from them, and from this history. Nothing has been told of them to us.

There is problem with communication here. The lack of transfer of information from generation to generation is a huge disadvantage for people who, like us, want to work on these subjects. Because such a transfer does not exist we have to collect the parts and try to create a whole by comparing, equalizing and placing them in certain categories. For example, I am making a documentary on the history of Ordu. It is related to how Ordu is remembered rather than history and realities of Ordu. Looking to Ordu with the perspective of today; I create a new Ordu, maybe a fictive one. New horizons can also be created. I could have chosen to narrate a history by scanning photographs and by interviewing people. But now I am searching for something in the buildings, in the letters. I started this to find elements; I am not searching for a whole.

I had the chance to observe this, in the speeches of the participants of another panel in which I participated in New York. There was a talk about issues which are not spoken about; taboos. I was talking with a director from Algeria; he said that his grandmother was Turkish and that it is a big taboo for someone’s grandmother to be Turkish in Algeria. He said me that he cannot make a documentary about his grandmother, he cannot even mention her. In Algeria, a Turkish berberian or a Jewish member of an Algerian family are taboos. Those who came from Morocco were saying that they cannot say anything against monarchy, and those who came from Iran were saying that they cannot say anything against their government. Therefore people are choosing more poetic, that is more abstract narratives. These open new ways, new horizons for artists as well. I am not so complainant as this. But I think the problem of silence is very decisive.

‘‘Auto-censorship [...] starts with not saying, not telling and not transferring. The reason for lack of interest in our generation with the past is that we have been born into and grow up in silence ’’

But now, here, I am meeting new people, I have students in Istanbul, they are very curious, very interested. To me there is a great dynamism now, a new identity of cinema documentary makers who deal with different issues and questions, research is emerging. Of course, things were also being done in the past. But I think that this research attitude is very hopeful in order for new generation to learn of its past. I am speaking for our generation.

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Because those older than us have experienced this process, they know, they witnessed it at first hand. However, there are many issues towards which our interest has been broken such as the 1970’s, 1980 coup d’etat, the 1966-67 events, wealth tax, and forced emigration. I find the dynamic emerging today more hopeful and enriching.

Thomas Balkenhol: I also want to add something from my own experiences. I am a professional editor. For the past 20 years I have made many films for German television. I have learnt that financing is also an important issue. Sometimes there is no need for censorship, because one has to find money to make the film that one wants to make, and whoever gives this money wants to be influential on the subject of the film. As you know the television channels operate according to a rating system. There is an understanding that the film which has the highest sale rates is a good and qualified film.

Recently, I edited a children’s film and I showed a small part of it to the producers. The television redactor warned me saying ‘a children’s film does not start with a wide plan’. There is an aesthetic pressure over us. For example, we used Ravel music in a film about a thunderbolt, and we were told, ‘this music cannot be used in a Bavarian traditional music program’. The reason for this is that the television managers are inclined to focus on the things that sell; they have a monopoly and even if they do not know what the audience wants to watch, what they think, they manage to use this opportunity successfully. This is very dangerous. There is an unseemly ideology behind this. For example, impacts are being made by new Turkish television channels; it is not clear what has happened or how this has occurred. This is a product of the same understanding. We should discuss this issue as well. In addition, when you criticize something, you are sued for damages; you don’t have the freedom to criticize. There is punishment in terms of financing. If we want to overcome censorship, we should create our own financing opportunities. This is needed to create an organization independent from monetary systems, a technical production system.

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Petra Holzer (Audience): I want to share something with you, regarding the censorship issue discussed today. We made three documentary films regarding the Bergama events between the years 1998 and 2001. For those who are unfamiliar with this case, it is the story of villagers who resisted gold mining with cyanide. We were subjected to censorship in two places, in Turkey and in Europe. These documentary films were not shown on Turkish television stations, because it was said that the film humiliates Turkey, because it claims that the state violates the decisions made by judicial system. It was also subjected to censorship in Europe, because the film was said to humiliate Europe. International corporations and their attitudes in the Bergama region in dealing with gold mining (including the European associates) were distorting opinions in Europe.

Thomas Balkenhol: I see. The fear of not showing things positively is a big problem. For example if a German documentary maker tries to make a film in Turkey and applies to official bodies, he or she is always treated with fear. If you show certain things, police can say that ‘You introduce us badly, you are showing this rather than beautiful buildings’. There is also the opposite of this. Germans have also different censorship mechanisms.

Behiç Ak: I want to say something too. We were staying with the director of Yol during the 12th of September period. He was expecting to be detained. Then he really was detained. He was detained for a while then he was released. I asked him whether they asked anything about the film. ‘Yol?’, he said, ‘No, they asked nothing’. He was detained for some more time but they still did not ask about Yol. Then he was detained again and this time they asked about the film. There is a scene in Yol in which a horse is killed, and they really did kill the horse (this is actually a terrible event; it is not possible to admit this).

When this film was shown in Europe, associations of animal lovers created an uprising arguing ‘How can a horse be killed in a film?’

Faxes were sent to Turkey, and Şerif was asked, ‘Did you kill this horse, or not? They only asked him this and then they released him.

Thomas Balkenhol: There is another story about this film. There is a scene in the film in which there is a gendarme raid, they storm a house and search it. They made these shots skillfully, without any difficulty at the time of the coup. They went to the gendarmerie and said we want to shoot one of your valiant operations and this is how they filmed the scene.

Tan Oral: The name of this panel is “Human Rights and Censorship”.

I have been thinking about these two issues. But up until now, censorship has been the focus, and yet the reason for censorship is the control over the applications of human rights. Therefore I think we should mention human rights. If the chair allows it I would like to have a quick brainstorm. You may find it a bit démodé. The issue being discussed here is actually human rights violations, rather than human rights. When these two issues, human rights and human rights violations are discussed I think the following: Who are those who commit these violations? I wonder whether the world is invaded by the extraterrestrials and they take away rights of the people. It’s like Maymunlar Cehennemi, a film in which monkeys establish a civilization and take away the rights of the people.

However this is not the situation, there are some people who should not be forgotten, the human beings who violate human rights. There is something which is not shared or cannot be shared, so people adopt such attitudes against themselves. To me the thing which is not shared is nothing more than a right to life.

Human Rights Violations

Recently, two systems for interpreting this subject have been in play.

On one side there are socialist systems, on the other side individualist systems based on consumption. Today, these consumptionist and individualist systems claim to solve all human rights violations in this global world; but they are not solved. So, what is the struggle for human rights aimed at, and why are movie makers subjected to censorship? This struggle aims at applications, the system, and the ideologies. There is a concealed and abstract human rights struggle; censorship is applied to those who want to announce this. If censorship is so necessary for these people there must be something that they want to make known. If there is something wrong, the way to solve it lies in sharing and publicizing it. There is an idiom in Ottoman language, which means that for something to be heard is worse than for it to happen.

‘‘To me, human rights violations and their concealment are nothing more than the problem of sharing concrete material interests; for permanence and safety, human rights are violated, this is concealed with censorship ’’

Think about it, America remonstrates about human rights today in the world; Richard Pearl who is an ideologue of America says in his book, “in order to maintain the life standard of American citizens we are ready to do everything that is necessary, if you want to like to help us we are pleased, if you do not, we wont become angry, and we are not as foolish as to wait for your help.” This is completely effrontery. We should consider why they talk about human rights violations when their interests are secured through them, and why they apply censorship in order to prevent spreading of what is dangerous for them.

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Today the issue of human rights has reached a point where it is understood that the people who are struggling for their rights should be treated more humanely and sensitively; they should be prevented without being dispersed. I think this is the essence of the matter.

Sometimes I think, if I am not a woman, a homosexual, a minority, under detention, a prisoner, a refugee, a migrant, who will defend my rights and how? Normal life ceases to be something which can be defended. Have you ever heard of an employer or a politician who was subjected to violations of human rights? This is because this problem is the problem of the people whose rights are taken away in the conflict of interests. But there are also small assurances, for example human rights courts. If your rights are violated you can go to court and receive compensation. But we should not forget that, the state does not make money as it did in the past and that if you go to the human rights court and receive compensation, the state pays the compensation with the taxes it gets from you, and in that way you obtain your right. To conclude; human rights violations are the reason

for censorship, this is a matter of a conflict of interests, the reason for confronting censorship applications is the struggle for people to secure their rights in this conflict of interests and to publicize this struggle.

Gürşat Özdamar (Audience): Censorship has been interpreted as ‘not showing’ in all of the speeches, but sometimes to show turns into a form of censorship. In fact every system tries to hide or conceal things by showing or not showing. In many products, works of art and culture, things are not represented; these are taboos which we mentioned before. Sometimes when we look at works, an impression is created as if nothing in particular has been filmed. Showing as if nothing has been concealed and changing the order of images through editing are other forms of censorship that have distorting influences. For example, a system which closes a factory and leaves people unemployed can show someone guilty for stealing bread, indicating the interests of only one of the parties. Or a system which leaves people homeless by dismantling shanty towns can take images for news of people resisting the police, and these parts can be used to relate the whole. The police applying censorship when what they show is only one part of the reality.

EU Representative (Audience): I wish to make a comment in the wake of what was just said. As a representative of the Council of Europe, and of course as an individual who is very sensitive to the issue of human rights violations, I can comment that the right to freedom is one of the key rights listed by the European Convention.

It is Article 10, which protects this right. It is not an absolute right, like the right to life but it is a major one. Thus with reference to the relationship between the right to freedom of expression and censorship; censorship is the limitation, an illegal way of limiting this basic right. What does this show? It shows that the power which limits this right, which cuts into the right to expression, is unsure of its legitimacy, because if it were a legitimate power, it would not need to limit the rights of citizens.

Concerning autocensorship, it is my belief that in many cases, people limit their own freedom of expression and exercise autocensorship to protect a certain image of what they think their country, their surroundings, their culture is about. They are aware that it is not perfect, that there are problems, but they are also unsure of the validity of their country, so they practice auto-censorship in order to protect an image. This is a very insidious attitude. Sometimes we are not aware of it; let me give you an example; for a year and a half I have been a representative in Albania of my organization, and I have taken many of photographs around the country, I have a certain approach to taking pictures, it is not necessarily most beautiful places that attract my attention.

Human Rights Violations

However, the pictures are aesthetic, but sometimes people who see them, respond negatively saying, ‘you are not showing what is beautiful about this country; you should show the positive things.’

This is also part of auto-censorship.

in Turkey are saddened by the sufferings of the upper classes. The opposite is also true, when people hear of the suffering of the under classes or the upper classes they make fun. That is, sadness is also a part of the entertainment industry.

Berke Baş: There is definitely an element of offence and shame in auto-censorship. When I look at an historical event, I see offence there, if it was conducted in my country, in my city - wherever.

There is another issue here; auto-censorship should not necessarily be seen as abetting. If the material remains limited when I narrate the event, for example if I narrate the story by comparing it to other versions, I do not deliberately abet censorship. Maybe it is shame; that is, the shame that I feel against the events lived out on this land.

This originates from a civil solidarity, or from an understanding of fraternity, citizenship. But here I mean to say that, this situation does not have to be so restrictive. I am not trying to show this situation within a positive aspect. This is in fact an expression implying that we should struggle to understand shame and offence.

So, when we look through the glasses of the cinema industry it is very difficult to pass over the wall of censorship. We can only manage this by developing a social practice including cinema. We should make documentary cinema, catch reality in a different way, organize panels such as this, and then we shall overcome visual limitations.

We should not start being defeated; because ‘we are from here’ we do not have to tell the same story. But we are trying to find how we can generate a whole beyond us, with a plural voice, through multiple narratives, by collecting the different versions. I agree with you regarding your opinions on shame and offence, we are trying to create an image in our mind. But we also do not want to endanger the people that we have talked to. For example my story is about a small city and everybody knows each other there, at this point an impulse for protection steps in. It is necessary to show without exposing. There is such a struggle.

Behiç Ak: In fact, we should take into account the realities of today when discussing censorship in cinema. To me, as long as we deal with cinema only as a profession, it is very difficult to break free from censorship. We live in an epoch where everything has been visualized, cinema has turned into an industry, every product, either documentary or social documentary, has become a part of the entertainment industry. People have almost no personal histories, as so many exist in the reality of cinema or visual reality.

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Actually, we should criticize this, if we cannot deal with censorship beyond professional parameters, and if we say, ‘I only make cinema and am not interested in other things’ it becomes more difficult to struggle with censorship. I want to say one more thing regarding the reality of today. Suffering of the under classes have become a part of the entertainment industry for upper classes. This is valid for vice versa. Sufferings of upper classes have become entertainment for under classes. Think for a moment, we are saddened by the suffering of the upper classes in soap operas such as Dallas; many people

Independent Cinema

Independent Cinema and Human Rights Speakers: Hüseyin Karabey, Kazım Öz, Özge Özyilmaz (SineGöz1), Güliz Sağlam Moderator : Volkan Kavas

(1) SineGöz Film Collective is an independent film collective that carries out every phase of their productions with its own members since June 2002 and has a claim to serve the opportunities created by cinema and in general visual communication to the interests of public.

They also claim to produce an alternative to dominating cinema in terms of content and form.

(2) A movie by Mel Gibson, which was produced by Gibson’s independent film production company Icon in 2004.

(3) A movement that were established in Italy after 1945. Among the main features of this movement are shooting on the field, amateur actors/actresses, using real time, frequent use of some images that have nothing to do with the continuity of the story, episodic expression and spontaneous ending of the stories.

(4) A movement established in France after 1950’s. Members of the movement has produced films with limited budgets, amateur artists and in natural environments without using the studio system.

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Ö

zge Özyılmaz: I had focused and done a little research when I heard that there would be a panel discussion on independent cinema. I made a list of some important points. I have taken the floor since I thought that speaking about those points would be a meaningful starting place. I searched on Google for the term «independent cinema», and I noticed that there is very ambiguous environment regarding the meaning of this term. Independent cinema is largely approached from an economic point of view. This approach defines independent cinema as a cinema budget which is brought together by the director of movie or production team. This understanding of independent cinema positions itself with reference to the Hollywood studio system. Using this definition as an explanation of independent cinema could include films such as Mel Gibson’s, The Passion of the Christ2 ; the production budget of which was prepared

by Mel Gibson himself independently of larger studios. I think this classification is not correct. It is for this reason that I think such economy based approaches bring with themselves many problems.

Perhaps we can talk about this here.

Aside from these problems, I think that the term independent cinema has recently acquired a wider meaning. Many film production practices that lie outside of the mainstream cinema sector are being dubbed as independent cinema. However, when we consider the history of cinema we can identify numerous different movements that lie outside of main stream cinema through different aesthetic and ideological expressions.

Neo-Realism3 and New Wave4 are among these movements.

Similarly, Soviet Constructivism and possibly German Expressionism can be counted among these movements. All of these movements had problems with main stream cinema. However, they must not be understood as a single concept. Each of them pursued different styles and therefore had different names. I believe that the widening the term independent cinema brought with itself certain irrelevancies.

For example, the Dogma Movement which defines itself through its differences with traditional cinema is not classified as an independent cinema movement. This name was given to it due to certain principles and rules that it demonstrates, and we call these films Dogma movies.

I think this is another point that should be considered.

We must also observe that the term independent cinema bears different meanings across different cultures. I believe that such widespread

© Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, by Michel Gondry (2004) usage of the term is related to the increasing popularity of North American Independent Cinema throughout the 1990’s. The definition of independent cinema is particularly meaningful in the U.S; because the cinema sector is dominated by large studios. Directors, cast, and production teams are strongly dependent on these studios. The contracts they sign with studios are extremely binding. It is in the sense of being independent from studios that the term has meaning in the U.S. Recently the situation in America has been particularly interesting. The success of independent cinema in the U.S. should be acknowledged, some very creative and innovative films have been made.

These films served a certain cultural need and they were produced at a time when Hollywood could not succeed in introducing novelty in the films it produced.

It now seems that Hollywood has turned towards independent film making. We can observe that many of the independent film production companies are being purchased by large Hollywood studios. Miramax was purchased by Disney Studios; and Focus Film, which made Lost in Translation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, was purchased by Universal Pictures. Alongside this, many large studios have established companies that produce films that could be regarded as independent. Sony established a company named ‘‘Sony Classics” and Warner established “Warner Independent.” All of these studios remain outside of mainstream cinema but they are still dependent on the large Hollywood studios.

Independant Cinema (5) A Documentary School that was established by John Grierson who regarded documentaries as recording and interpretation of reality.

According to them this was the ideal way of influencing public

Whilst I was conducting my research on the Internet I noticed that a website which sells movies has created a special directory for independent cinema, amongst which are westerns and musicals. It is because independent cinema productions have created their own audiences that it has become a category of movies. However, the approach of classifying independent cinema production as one specific movie type is problematic. Here we can give the establishment of Hollywood itself as an interesting illustration of this situation. As many of you know, when Edison invented Cinematography, Motion Pictures established a Patent Company in order to receive payments from the usage of all kinds of equipment in movie production. The need to escape from this obligation marks the beginning of the Hollywood Company. A group of independent filmmakers moved to South California and established Hollywood against the domination of Motion Pictures. The system of Hollywood itself started as a movement against monopoly, against trusts. I would like to take a break to my speech, but I have many other points to make. We will come to them later.

Volkan Kavas: Could you tell us a little about the SineGöz Film Collective in connection with this term? Perhaps we can continue with Kazım Öz in the second tour.

one. It is insufficient. There is no doubt that the independence of a particular film is related to the financing of its budget; however this criterion is not enough to call a film, independent. I wonder whether an independent film should have something different from traditional cinema from aesthetic or ideological points of view. Or if we look from a technical point of view, is it possible that «independent cinema» could be independent from traditional cinema in terms of both monetary, technical, aesthetic aspects?

Many movements in the history of cinema have emerged in the following ways. The English Documentary School5 for example began by denying the necessity of good scenery, good light, a good camera, and a good team. They started their work with an ordinary camcorder and reduced the budget requirements to almost nothing. They started to shoot ‘documents’. As their movement became established they acquired a degree of freedom and from this a new type of aesthetics emerged, and thus a new cinema language. From this aspect, what I see as lying at the beginning of all other movements in the history of cinema was the practice of changing some of the production methods of the existing systems and keeping away from existing financial sources.

Kazım Öz: I think this discussion has had a good starting point. It naturally began from the definition of the term ‘independent cinema’.

It really is a very controversial term, especially when we consider the example of Hollywood, which as Özge said, was established as an independent movement as a reaction against an existing structure of monopolization.

However, Hollywood itself now is the largest monopoly in the field of cinema worldwide. It is the largest monopoly against the practice of independent cinema. It became, according to statistical information (although I am not certain about its validity) the third or the fourth largest sector bringing income into the U.S. economy. That is, it became the biggest of three or four sectors that keep the enormous United States of America afloat. I think that this information alone is enough to show how Hollywood has become a mechanism of exploitation and a monopoly.

I also would like to say a few words about the criteria for classifying a film as an independent production. I wonder what criteria we should use to demarcate the independence of a film, a filmmaker or a cinema movement. What we observe is that the definition of independence is usually based on economic concerns, which look at the source of a production budget. In cases where the source of the budget is separate from the existing cinema system the production is usually classified as independent. Actually I don’t think that this definition is a good 37

© UZAK, by Nuri Bilge Ceylan (2002) Then a new movement may become an example of independent cinema. What I am asking now is whether it is possible to have an independent cinema that is really independent from financial support from a State, a television channel, sponsors, cultural funds or supplies from a producer. All of these are the primary sources behind existing productions. Independent productions could be like Hüseyin’s film, in which production, direction, editing, camera etc, were produced by Hüseyin Karabey himself. What I am asking is whether independence is possible only in this way? That is an individual takes a camera in his hand and produces the entire movie by himself.

Independent Cinema

When this work is dubbed as “independent” misunderstandings can arise. Since these definitions are made not by those who make these productions but by those who earn money from the business, they tend to confuse people. However, we didn’t say that we would be independent film makers; we intended to tell something that has not yet been told. We thought of making a film about ‘Saturday Mothers’7 (‘Cumartesi Anneleri’) and we thought we should carry out every phase of the production by ourselves in order to create difference from existing productions. We even decided not to take any money from anyone, although it was offered.

‘‘We, independent filmmakers, do not define the concept of independent cinema. We also do not call ourselves makers of political films ’’

Kazım ÖZ, behind the camera

(6) A Turkish film distribution company.

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(7) Those who make sit-down protest in every Saturday in Turkey in a bid to voice their concerns on their relatives that were forcefully disappeared.

Is this the only way to be independent? On the other hand Zeki Demirkubuz’s and Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s productions were regarded by New Cinema (Yeni Sinema) as examples of independent cinema.

There are some questions that could be raised at this point: does a production become independent when it is not financed by Özen Film6 but by Efes Pilsen? This shows that a similar discussion is taking place in Turkey. When considered from this aspect, it becomes difficult to overcome this discussion. I cannot draw certain conclusions about where to begin the discussion on these issues; however what I generally think is that what we call independent cinema could arise in Turkey only when we bring an intellectual and an aesthetical difference along with a new ideological approach. This would bring with itself new kinds of film production methods. I think that behind the English Documentary School’s, Neo-Realism’s and New Wave’s denial of existing cinema technology and its principles there is an ideology.

What I believe is that such movements have emerged when people start to look at the world from a different perspective. From this respect, what lies behind the idea of independence is way of looking that is different to the existing systems, understandings, and trends.

I think that perhaps we could approach independent cinema in this way. These are the only words that I could find with respect to the definition of independent cinema.

Hüseyin Karabey: I think that we should continue from where Kazım finished. This is because academic knowledge could confuse us in understanding the reality. There is already an ambiguity in our minds due to such information available. What is it to be independent? It appears that we should reject any monetary offers. I wish we had money and we weren’t required to all kinds of work.

We wouldn’t call ourselves makers of romance films when we shoot a romance film. All these definitions are made by those who try to understand us or to earn money from us. That is because, as Özge tried to exemplify, there are some people who say “if independent cinema has created a certain audience for itself then we should establish something to make money from this.”

My basic instinct towards cinema is very simple, I hoped to make cinema in order to express my situation which is not expressed by traditional practice of cinema. Such an aim naturally brings with itself the need to make a cinema different from the existing products.

I don’t make films in order to be different from the existing practice of film making but I am making films just because existing cinema does not express me. On the other hand I like watching movies very much. If there were any director, or film that I liked watching then I wouldn’t make films. It is a very difficult job; it carries with itself a thousand difficulties.

The source of money has a particular importance in this process because whoever gives you money also puts obstacles in front of you in order not to lose the money they invest in your product. When people invest money in your product which is about Saturday mothers, Kurdish people or street children, they tell you not to emphasize some issues in order not to touch on dangerous points. They don’t want uneasiness about their business. If you take money from someone you have to be careful not to make something against the interest of the financial source. Otherwise you reject sponsorship and try to shoot your film by yourself, and then people call your product independent or not. What I am trying to say is that we are not trying to make things worse for ourselves. If one day there was a healthy environment in which we were provided with suitable funds without any preconditions then we would express our stories. Otherwise we will continue to carry out every phase of our jobs by ourselves.

Independent Cinema (8) Official Turkish national lottery organization.

(9) A foundation that has been financed by the members of Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) and some companies in order to provide aid to those who lose their lives during their term of service within Turkish Armed Forces.

(10) The first national satellite network based in New York that enables local programmers, producers, independent cinema makers and activists to reach each other.

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That is why I will ask Kazım to use the camera in my film and I will help another friend in the montage of his or her film. The last ten years have passed in this way. If I have made ten films during these years, I have also contributed to the production of at least fifty other films.

I don’t think that we would say “no” to anyone who offered support for our films if we become successful like the independent filmmakers in the U.S. and could create our own audience. It would be possible if they did not intervene with our business and did not go against our aims. Otherwise we will be organized within ourselves and will shoot films more easily.

Actually, the definition of independent cinema naturally changes from country to country. I would like to add the point that it is related to human rights. As you see, those who were invited here are people involved in the promotion of human rights and filmmakers. This is not something that is difficult to understand. As I have said before, capital investors do not want to touch anything that could be dangerous to them. Therefore the problems we experience in person.

We cannot find a place in cinema or television to air the problems that we witness. If our aim was only to become filmmakers, then we would tell them that we would make the stories they want to hear; had we done this I believe we would have found a place in the system.

We are now viewed as bad guys in this system. However, when things change and they are not afraid of us then production conditions can change and it won’t be as difficult for us to be produced. I can give an example of this; because we encounter many difficulties in our work we sometimes try to use funds from foreign countries. We learn many things in our relations. I was influenced by what I noticed in the U.K. There is a fund for young filmmakers that graduate in the U.K. This fund operates like this; you send your story to the Film Council and state what you have done in the field of cinema before and then they evaluate and decide whether to provide for your project.

However, they do not say that your project is refused, but you got a response like, «such and such points of your project are imperfect.»

The criteria they used in evaluating the projects are completely valid for the field of cinema. This is because the institution itself is not the financial source. The money for the fund is collected from the people; 1% of the money earned from the national lottery is allocated to young filmmakers. But in our national lottery (Milli Piyango8) 35% of the money is allocated to armament and the remaining parts are allocated for foundations like Mehmetçik Vakfı9. However in the U.K. 1% of this money is allocated to young filmmakers. I have friends working there and they also say that the Council guides the applicants in the deficient points of their projects. This is because the Film Council consults with a group of professionals before completing the evaluation. It seems that something has been formed there.

It doesn’t mean that this system has no problems but we are saddened by the lack of such a structure in our country. What I am trying to say is that it is obvious that those who are giving money to us wouldn’t give that money unless they like our stories, and then they call us independent film makers, and we shoot our films as long as we want to tell our stories. This process is torturous and painful, because we have to earn money from other businesses to finance our films. We try to do the editing because we don’t have any money to give to film editors. Then some people look at this practice from outside and say that “Hhmm it seems that one shouldn’t take any money from anyone in order to be an independent filmmaker.” This is not the case. Actually, we would like to work in better conditions. These definitions and difficulties are results of the systems’ own features. If independent cinema in the U.S. has become a successful sector it has something to do with the issues it deals with. We are speaking about U.S. independent cinema but there is also even more independent cinema in the U.S. that people are not very aware of.

There is an organization called Deep Dish TV10, which criticizes the social events in America very harshly. This is not regarded as independent cinema. There is no money there. They organize themselves and send their products to local TV stations and NGOs. They have very serious networks.

There are also one or two video activist groups. I think they are the groups that suit the definition of independency in our minds. There are no more Jim Jarmuschs and other young talented filmmakers © www.deepdishtv.org around.

I would like to add one final point in order to make a comparison.

There is a film festival called the Independent Films Festival in Belgium. It has been around for a long time. The last one festival was the 34th. I participated in the festival with Sessiz Ölüm (Silent Death).

They accept films from all over the world. In the festival I participated in there were some films sent from the U.S. The producers of the two films were also present. Those films had budgets of 3 million dollars.

I said that the budget of my film was twenty thousands dollars.

But in fact at most it cost five thousands dollars. They are making the assessment among those films. We were given an award which surprised me because it seems impossible to compare my film with theirs. It is not the fault of those people; they have made this practice as dependant as it can be to budget, I cannot be angry with them. I wish I could have as much money which would allow me to shoot movies in better conditions. Thus the definition of independent cinema changes in relation to different countries.

Independent Cinema

I describe myself as somebody trying to express his stories through cinema. All of the other qualifications are result of other people’s attempt to understand us. Those definitions therefore may not reflect the reality. Perhaps they always miss some point because of the nature of this work.

independent films by saying “I will make independent cinema.”

What I wanted to emphasize when I gave examples from the history of cinema was that American independent cinema is surrounded by Hollywood even without the awareness of the creators in the practice of independent cinema. It is in this sense that no one starts to practice by saying that “We will make independent cinema.” However I think that producers should think about the ways they could keep their practice independent.

Güliz Sağlam: Firstly, I should mention that I also share the opinions of my friends. I guess that independent cinema is not only related to budgets, it has also to do with content. That is that you Güliz Sağlam have to find money from somewhere and shoot your film. There is no other way. It would be correct to define art products that are dependent upon the will of their creator as pieces of independent cinema. Creators of such projects could protect themselves from the effects of external sanctions. However, I also agree with my friends in the opinion that these definitions are always made from outside of the field. Nobody starts their work by saying: “I will make independent cinema.” People have concerns and they start to shoot films to express their thoughts. This does not mean that all independent cinema pieces are good examples of cinema. There are many people who have money and who start making films. These are also called independent cinema productions due to the conditions in which they were made. I have, for the first time, shot a documentary and people helped me. Their names are written in the credits but they weren’t there at the time of shooting. This practice is also within independent cinema, this is why I have been invited to this panel discussion. I guess it emerges out of a reaction against something.

SineGöz is contributing in this sense, due to its collective nature, we decide on what we will do by ourselves. For example CNN Turk television11 has requested our documentary; they may think of screening it and would give us money in return. Luckily that hasn’t happened. They have experienced problems with screening it. What would we say if such a thing happened? What we would say if they want to cut parts? What would we do if they offered us money? A collective work has a broader perspective than an individual one. We have discussed issues in our collective and became aware of many points that we haven’t noticed individually. I would count this as an advantage that collective works have over individual works.

Independent cinema in Turkey has slowly emerged from reactions against some relations and production companies. As Hüseyin said, no one started this business by saying “I should make independent cinema.” There are some networks of relations and distribution channels or production channels that interfere in directors’ jobs. The production company always tries to take command even if they like the story. Then some people shoot films by using their opportunities.

This is how it is. I cannot say anything more on the issue.

Volkan Kavas: If you like we can now pass to questions. At this point I would like to repeat my question to Özge. Could you tell us a little about the experience of the Sinegöz Film Collective?

(11) A Turkish news channel

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Özge Özyılmaz: Yes, I can talk about this. But firstly, I would like to talk about the discussions of my friends. The definition of independent cinema is made from the outside. No one begins to practice shooting

I can also mention another advantage of collective work. You all know that we have experienced very challenging production processes.

Because we don’t earn any money from this business, we are all occupied with different jobs, and as we have other types of jobs, we get tired, our motivation goes away. At these times it is the promise that you gave to the other members of the group that makes you stand up and maintain your job. I personally know that if I had started this project by myself I would have shelved the video cassettes. In that respect when one loses his or her motivation, another member of the group carries on the project. This is another advantageous side to a collective work.

It also brings with itself some difficulties. For example in Hüseyin’s film production, direction, editing and filming is carried out by him and this is advantageous in terms of time. We have had hour long discussions on scenario issues. Despite that we are a group of people whose approach to cinema is very close; we still have many discussions due to individual differences. In that respect, a collective work also brings some difficulties. There were some discussion meetings in which we couldn’t reach a conclusion on the issues and had to arrange different meetings to continue the discussion.

We were five people during the production of documentary on Aziz Nesin and then we become six while producing Orhan Kemal and we are now not 15 but eigthy people. We are an expanding group.

Now our aim is to make it possible to shoot several films within the SineGöz Collective.

Independent Cinema (12) Jean Rouch (31 May 1917 - 18 February 2004) was a French filmmaker and an influential anthropologist.

Rouch’s films mostly belonged to the “cinéma vérité” school – a term that Edgar Morin used in 1960 refering to Dziga Vertov’s Kinopravda. Some of his film are affiliated to the Nouvelle Vague (Chronique d’un été, 1961).Throughout his career, he used his camera to report on life in Africa. Over the course of five decades, he made almost 120 films.

(13) Dziga Vertov, whose real name was Denis Kaufman, is the founder of “Kino-eye” (“SineGöz”), a soviet cinema director and cinema theoretician.

Vertov tried to develop film methods that deny textual and theatric traditions in order to ensure effective mental participation of cinema-goers whose consciousnesses are numbed.

Volkan Kavas: Thank you. Now we can take your questions or opinions.

Audience: I have a question to Hüseyin Karabey about his documentary titled Boran. I will ask several questions within a question but all of them will be related to the same thing. You have an emphasis in the documentary related to a story against phenomena. I can see the phenomena and story within a documentary at the same time. You tell us about the phenomena on the one hand and story on the other. You start from a real event, but I wonder what you focused your attention on while reanimating some parts of that story; and the issue of music.

Music was used powerfully in some scenes of the documentary, and it was obvious that the documentary itself was very powerful and that the story was touching. I would like to ask the reasons behind the selection of this music…

Hüseyin Karabey: I will try to answer this question briefly but that may not be possible. In fact I do not call my film a documentary or fiction. It seems easier to me to call it fiction because, what people call documentary is a style that is carried out according to the preferences of the director, and the style is more fictive than the fiction. We are trying to be persuaded that we are watching real things, which are in fact the preferences of the director and the director’s reality. I didn’t think like this when I started cinema.

At that time I thought that if I located a camera at a point and showed events as they are, then everybody would understand. I was thinking that way because I couldn’t see the truth I now see on television. Then I started shooting events and discovered that showing them didn’t create the results I was expecting. It was then that I arrived at this conclusion, cinema is subjective; you are making a selection that makes your product subjective when you shoot a documentary or when you shoot a real event one to one. You locate the camera either at one or another point that is a selection.

My first serious project was Gazi; we made a montage in that documentary. The documentary was about an uprising in a neighborhood which was the result of a provocation. Military forces along with police forces had intervened in the events and tens of people were killed in three days. We discussed whether to locate camera, behind the police barricades or within the people towards which gunfire were opened. All the footage that we had seen on television was shot from behind the police barricades. We tried to pass to the other side of the events to tell our story. This was a political preference and I thought it was the truth.

Before I had heard of a man called Jean Rouch12, I hadn’t seen a director who could show the subjectivity of cinema particularly well,

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© From the documentary Mosso Mosso (Jean Rouch comme si) by Jean-André Fieschi, 1998

apart from Vertov13, and I learnt about Jean Rouch’s contributions to New Wave. He has influenced me greatly. Then I thought, I have justifications and I have stories to tell, and I will make use of every method in order to tell those stories. This is because I regard cinema as something magical, and as a subjective world. I thought that I would use these features of cinema as much as I could. Here is an example from Boran; it took me three years to shoot Boran, it wasn’t easy in spite of the fact I shot it myself. The reason for this difficulty was my reaching of a deadlock in making the preferences that you have mentioned and preferences regarding the conditions of production.

At that point I decided that it is the heart that motivates people and not the brain and consciousness. We are doing something just because the heart orders us to.

It is not enough to know something. At that time, everyone knew about ‘Saturday mothers’ and disappearances. Everyone knew that the sons and daughters of those people had disappeared due to certain events, and that the State was involved in 90% of them. However, since news footages were just informing people about the bare statistical facts, no one understood what it was to lose a son or daughter. Because only bits of information were presented, no one was particularly interested in the events. At that moment I thought some of the people that disappeared are my friends, and I know what their families live through after loosing their sons and daughters.

All of those events were clearly disasters. I decided that if I could manage to relate even 1% of those events, people would become more sensitive when they saw a news article about forced disappearances.

Thus I avoided giving information to people. You have already noticed that I didn’t give any information in the documentary about, whom, by whom, where, or how many people were abducted.

Independent Cinema

That is because I became aware that this information was not that important. If I managed to make people consider the answers to these questions, then it would be very easy for them to find information through the Internet or newspapers. In this way I decided on the method. It was time to speak to the mothers, to try to tell of their pains.

Then an ethical question came to my mind. I asked to myself: “What if those families become grieved again when I speak with them and I make them recall their sufferings?” I thought that it would be a second suffering for them to speak in such a documentary. Then I decided to talk with them. I told the mothers: “I would like to shoot such a documentary but I have reservations because I am afraid of reminding you of your sufferings.” Their answers surprised me. They told me:

I tried to understand her. I thought if I can relate her feelings to other people, perhaps they could also try to understand them. That is because that I knew that the media’s way of relating the news about forced disappearances does not tell us about what the families experience in reality. Concerning the usage of music and choice of the team, we decided not to employ anyone that did not know about these events or who hadn’t been detained by the police before. This applied to all the team from the musicians to the actors and actresses (in the fictional parts of the documentary) to the workers of the film set. Then there was no need for me to explain to those people about the feelings in such circumstances. I told them to relate to what they lived.

“My dear son, do you think that we can forget our sufferings at any moment in our life? We feel this pain at every moment of our lives.

However, perhaps through your film, people could understand about our sufferings and that would be a contribution to prevent sufferings of other mothers by contributing to the prevention of the forced disappearances.

Concerning the music, we chose the compositions of Grup Yorum14, which is a protest group; members of which have been repeatedly detained. Their friends have also been abducted before. The only thing I wanted to try in music usage to make the audience aware of when the music would be incorporated in the scene. The audience knows in advance when the music will enter and what music it will be. I tried to relate something through the repetition of music.

You initially see the event of a disappearance. Disappearance of a son, a mother waiting. Everything seems to be in relation to that particular disappearance event, but then come repetitions and in each repetition something is added and then the story becomes not a story of a hero but the documentary, which becomes a documentary on a phenomenon. Through repetitions I tried to show that the events show themselves in repetitive forms in all instances and pursue the same circle. You can decide whether I was successful in expressing this or not. These are the methods I used in my films.

I was deeply influenced by their approach. Their solidarity and their words were beyond my expectations. We even wrote the scenario together. You can guess that many of them did not know how to read and write. I asked them what happened at that time and they told me the story.

The rest of the documentary was unbelievably easy because they didn’t act; they just re-lived what they had lived before. The majority of the scenes were shot in one take. The instances in which we had to shoot a scene twice were mostly due to my errors. There is a very dramatic scene in the documentary in which a mother looks through the window hoping that her son will return. Then a photograph of her son falls down, at the moment when her son dies. That wasn’t something that I put into the scenario, it was their suggestion. During the shot, one of the mothers said:

(14) A band that was established in 1985 by four university students and which appropriates principles of revolutionary music.

The group was among the first groups that played songs in Kurdish.

Many claims of legal and political crimes were attributed towards the group.

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“On the fourth day of the abduction of my son while I was looking through the window, my son’s photo fell down, then I hung it up again and it fell down again. We learned that my son had been killed that day.”

Volkan Kavas: Are you saying that there are some metaphysical points in your expressions? How do you describe dramatization according to your understanding?

Hüseyin Karabey: I will give an answer to this. What I am trying to explain here is the contribution of the mothers to the script, not something metaphysical. I told this story to show how my preferences formed alongside their contributions. I could not say to the mother: “Are you saying that it is something metaphysical?” At that moment,

Volkan Kavas: Is there another question?

Audience: My question would be to Güliz Sağlam and Hüseyin Karabey. You said that you have worked with the people that have experienced these events. I would like to ask you whether you are aligning yourselves to those people.

Hüseyin Karabey: I do not call myself a professional cinema producer. It was easier for me to relate what I had already experienced or witnessed. The people I talked with were already my close friends or friends of my friends. We all experienced the same suffering, thus communication between us was easy. The reason why I got a cinema education was that I thought if I am going to relate myself to this field, then I should learn more about it. Therefore, we always shared the same feelings with the people we worked with. However, they did not insist on changing parts of the scenario and they did not try to incorporate their thoughts in the documentary. They told me: “We trust you and we will do anything we can to help you.”

Independent Cinema

(15) A historical name of ‘Tunceli’; a province in the eastern part of Anatolia, which is mostly inhabited

by Kurds, who have experienced many important events during its history

Security problems could also be discussed here, because it wasn’t so easy to shoot such films at that time. Both for those who were shooting and for those who appeared in the films. We paid particular attention to avoid any malicious event that could be experienced by those who appeared in the film.

Güliz Sağlam: As for me, I spent a lot of time with these people I shot the documentary about. I tried to explain what I would like to do. At the beginning, they didn’t understand my aims, they asked, “Why you have chosen us?”. I chose them because they were relatives and they were all residing in the same building. It was more meaningful for me to work with a large and crowded family. What I was surprised by during the shooting was that they were very shy at the beginning but as we proceeded they became very enthusiastic about talking in front of camera. I wasn’t saying much, they were speaking without any motivation from outside. We got used to each other. But I couldn’t say the same for the males in the family. They always kept their distance and were disturbed by the talkativeness of the female members of the family. We even didn’t see each other much during the shooting and after. It was the women that wanted to express themselves.

Volkan Kavas: Can I ask a question at this point? Can we say that it was the women that were more affected by the migration and the class differences and that this has directed them to talk more? Or is this only my interpretation of the situation?

Güliz Sağlam: All of those families that migrated are in bad conditions.

We cannot distinguish men from women because they all experience the same thing. However, women are still slightly different. For example, a man comes to a different city but he goes out of the home and enters into various businesses or cultural relations on the street.

But this is not so for the women. They come to a different city and become imprisoned within the walls of their home. They cannot go out much because they feel themselves alien and plus they do not know the language and culture. We have observed this situation in the field.

However, the situation is changing slowly. At the time of the shooting of documentary the situation was more like that. However, I had been observing them for a little while and I noticed that they come together and participate in some collective activities among themselves. I am talking about those who were subjected to forced migration. These collective activities help them to learn how to express themselves.

However, what they really want is to return to their homelands. It seems to me that women are in more difficult situations than men.

Volkan Kavas: Is there another question?

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Audience: My question will be to Kazım Öz. There is something strange here. Kazım Öz went to make a documentary but he transformed this documentation into something else. What reason made him to go to Dersim15, where there are different cultural identities from different segments of the society? We haven’t seen yet the documentary but we will watch it after the panel discussion. I would like to ask, how these things have affected Kazım Öz, because there are some references to the history and events?

Kazım Öz: In fact my last documentary wasn’t a project that was planned from the beginning and was completed on the desk. This stage really happened much later than the shooting. When I took the camera in my hand, I found myself in my village; I hadn’t yet held a camera until that day. My friend had a camera, and I have realized much later that the film started at that time. I became aware in 2001 that I had been pursuing the path of a project. Consider that the first shootings were in 1995. Then I thought about bringing all of them together and watching them. This idea emerged in me when I showed the footage to the people from that village. Neighbours in Dersim’s Pertek town heard about my shootings and they asked me to show them.

Then I started showing them in my home and I realized that my flat had turned into a cinema hall. People were watching the videos and speaking among themselves. It was at that moment that I realized the magic in cinema. It was then I decided to start the activity of producing cinema. I think that to document is an instinct that is in the nature of mankind. You know that the most important problem in all houses is the things that can’t be thrown into the garbage. Even our computers are like that. Everything is full of garbage because you cannot throw away something that you have written or that belongs to you. You feel very strange when you lose these things, it gives you pain. You feel that you have lost something. I think this is part of human nature. I don’t know but perhaps cinema itself is something like this. I don’t know what we are documenting and why but we have such an occult language.

In fact a reaction to this also emerged in me when I was shooting the documentary. There were villages and lives in front of me. The villages changed and decomposed, and relations were changing each day. People die each day. Time exhausts everything that I try to document. Perhaps this is why I got a camcorder; I always went to that village with a camera in my hand. For example, when I go for a six-day vacation to a village I take the camera and see the village only through the visor of the camera. Then I realize that the vacation has ended and I have to return to the city.

Independent Cinema

After I started inquiring into this situation I asked what documentation is, even when it doesn’t affect people’s lives and does not mean anything to them. Then I went there for one or two years without a camera as a result of a reaction against documenting. Then a new idea emerged in me. I started a project and thought perhaps this would add a meaning to my attempts of documentation. Coming to the other part of your question, I can say that my preference to shoot it in Dersim had something to do with the characteristics of the place in that period.

The project did not rely on multiculturalism. However you could express many details even in a ten seconds long documentary, not a 75 minute one.

From that aspect, the Dersim massacre is very interesting; it is not something that can be talked over. It is put under a blanket first by those who have lived those years. There are intense debates on the history of Turkey but people turn a blind eye to this particular issue.

I don’t know whether it is because a historical fear or a captivity in the deepness of our subconscious. I myself listened to my fathers memories from 1938 two years ago and was surprised by them. He told me small details about what he had experienced when he was a child and it affected me very much. Then I started my inquiry; why haven’t those memories been told until now? There are one or two points in the documentary about this issue. We could call this the dream of a village. It could be the dream of Dersim or of Black Sea Region, or in a different country. It doesn’t matter.

Volkan Kavas: Are there any other questions? If not, I would like to ask another question to all of our speakers. There is a common point in all of your films. We cannot see any of those films on a commercial display or on television. The places where we can see them are festivals or at events such as today’s. They only have the chance to be shown for one projection. Why is the situation like that? In fact you have partly answered the question but I would like to ask whether this has something to do with the production conditions that or whether it has something to do with distribution processes? Do you think that it is possible to change these conditions or how can these conditions be changed?

Kazım Öz: The process we experienced during the last documentary we shot could answer your question. Naturally I shot this documentary as a video project; it is a 75-minute film. We had in front of us a product that could meet with an audience in a hall. We do not have the same collective structure as Özge mentioned but there is the team work of eight to ten people. We projected this film in 20-23 cities in Turkey. We shot it in video and projected it in video format. In some places we projected it by covering the 35 mm and in some places we covered the windows and showed it on television. And since this was

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the first instance of such a thing, we experienced many difficulties.

We couldn’t reach a very large audience but film has paid off its costs.

It was a very serious experience.

This has something to do with the discussion we had at the beginning.

I believe that the process after which you have an independent cinema product in your hand is also very important. Many of the films that are produced independently cannot reach a wide audience. Many of them could be projected once or twice in festival or could be shown on a TV at a time when almost nobody watches. This has nothing to do with the quality those film products have. If looked at from this perspective, it can be said that almost 90% of the movies which are currently in cinema do not have any quality. It is a matter of monopoly and market; it has only to do with the strength of capital.

Now what can we do against this if not to limit ourselves to the monopoly of 35mm?

Nowadays it is possible to shoot a film in digital format and to project it to an audience. However, some people still try to maintain the monopoly of 35 mm. They will try to maintain it even after technology finds a solution to other relevant issues. If a certain organization or a network could be established, things would become easier. That is because the production cost has reduced significantly.

There is now the possibility to create an alternative. I believe that we will have alternative cinema products from which we could get a feedback from the audience.

Hüseyin Karabey: Actually I have also experienced a similar process. In 2001 we showed Sessiz Ölüm in two cinema halls. Even if we couldn’t reach a very large audience, we learned that we should think that it was possible. First you should persuade yourself of its possibility and then you should persuade the audience. Our point of departure was that we didn’t believe that audience makes a selection such as: “We shouldn’t go watching this film because it is not shot in 35 mm.” We believed that the audience should have alternatives. They go to movies if there is something that interests them in the movie.

We believed that and it happened. Kazım’s experience underlines the importance of this approach I think.

We also have another opportunity for the future. We can show our films in cinema halls, in many non-governmental organizations, in cafes and in wedding halls that have turned into cinema halls. This is because our films interest mostly the people who are living there and they do not care about the conditions in which they watch those films. In addition to that, advancing technology has made it possible to shoot quality films at cheaper prices. You have just watched an example of a digital film, it wasn’t so bad. It would have been better if the quality was better but watching the film wasn’t torture for anyone.

Independent Cinema (16) VCD (Video Compact Disc) and DVD (Digital Video Disc): optical storage technologies that could allow storage of compressed moving image.

(17) Health and Social Service Workers Trade Union. It was established at the beginning of 1990s as a result of the struggle of public workers during the 80’s.

It is possible for us to shoot in 35mm but we should now focus on maintaining shooting films and on the distribution channels that would allow us to convey our movies to a larger audience. We are establishing a network that cannot be underestimated. I have estimated the number of people who watched Silent Death. It reached almost 15 thousands people. These numbers are not only from cinema halls. There were provinces that asked me to make a gala premier and then the number of audience reached one, two or five thousands. It is not a number to be exaggerated. If I had written a book called Silent Death and it had reached 15 thousand readers, then it would be considered as a very successful book. We could increase the number through different methods.

Kazım’s other films, and this film, were also published in VCD and DVD formats16. We are also conveying these to the people. It is never possible to estimate the size of the audience when you attempt to reach them in these formats. We experienced this recently, one of my friends and I made a film which SES17 trade union supported. The trade union sent the film to all of its branch offices. We heard that people in Mardin watched this film and made copies onto discs. Then a family from Mardin came to Istanbul and met with my brother and said him that they and many other people had watched the movie. We had very interesting feedbacks from the audience. This wasn’t so easy in the past. There remains no obstacle in front of us to reach the people we would like to reach. That is that the dominion of 35mm is about to end because owners of cinema halls are also transforming their halls as to make them compatible with digital formats. It is a really serious business. There is an opportunity for us to reach distribution channels.

If Kazım had shot his film in 35 mm then we would have to struggle for entering to the distribution channels. In that case, distributors would threaten owners of cinema halls for not showing our films. Thus we shouldn’t connect everything to a single point. Rather than thinking about how to shoot films on 35 mm, we should first think about how to maximize our access to distribution channels. Özge Özyılmaz: We also had a similar experience. Our film was also shown in many cities from Antalya to Diyarbakır to Izmit. Perhaps not as much as Kazım’s film but it was also a success. Since we are a team, we would always send one or two of our friends to the cinema hall where our film is showing. They go to receive feedback from theaudience. I also share the same views with my friends. Many times we couldn’t even find any places to show our films. We showed our films in many cultural centres and university campuses.

Güliz Sağlam: I also share the same views. As the years pass opportunities for screening our films are increasing in Turkey. This is good news. Small scale festivals are being organized and there are

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alternative film screenings and women’s film festivals. Our films have already been shown at these events. When they are shown in these instances, they find ways to spread. This is also true for this film. I never expected that it would spark such an interest among people.

However it has also been screened in many places abroad. This is also good news.

Media & Monopolization

Media and Monopolization Part 1

B

eybin Kejanlıoğlu: Hello, I am Dilek Beybin Kejanlıoğlu from Ankara University Faculty of Communication. My friend, Gülseren Adaklı is from the same faculty. We will both speak about media and monopolization but since it is such a broad topic we do not know exactly where to begin. Because this is a panel, we thought that we could develop an interactive discussion atmosphere. For that reason I did not prepare an academic text, nevertheless I will attempt to include some academic data and examples in my discussion.

The title of this session, in which the terms ‘media’ and ‘monopolization’ come together, suggests that we are thinking about the political economy of the media or communication. For us, the first connotation of monopolization is something along these lines. If we consider a political economy approach to media studies, it reminds us of macro problems such as media ownership and control, the relation of the media industry to other industries, the State, and of concepts such as monopolization, intensification, commodification, commercialization, interest motive, as well as their echoes in media. It is at the level of connotation that these concepts emerge at first.

(1) Golding, P. ve G. Murdock (1997) “Kültür, İletişim ve Ekonomi Politik,” çev., D. B. Kejanlıoğlu.

Medya, Kültür, Siyaset.

Ed., S. İrvan. Ankara: Ark, 49-76 (2) Boyd-Barrett, O. (1995) “The Political Economy Approach,” Approaches to Media: A Reader. London: Arnold, 186-192

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(3) Mosco, V. (1996) The Political Economy of Communication.

Rethinking and Renewal, London & NY: Sage

Considering monopolization and the characteristics of the media field, one can take two main approaches with respect to political economy. The liberal market approach, which is the more explicit of the two, represents the dominant understanding. I will use Adam Smith as a starting point to discuss this approach.

Liberal Political Economics treats the economy as a separate and specialized sphere, explaining the relationship CNBC-e logo between individuals and the market in terms of economic laws or formulas, it almost sanctifies the individuals i.e. consumers who are dominant in capitalism and it emphasizes the importance of their choices (Golding and Murdock, 1997: 54)1.

By focusing on exchange relations in the market, this approach defends the free market and the freedom of choice for consumers.

It is this understanding of specialized economy, an understanding where everything depends on the market and in which the digits are dominant, that we encounter most commonly, through teaching and economy programs or economy journals. An understanding of the economy which depends on capital and which is shaped by stock

Speakers: Gülseren Adaklı, D. Beybin Kejanlıoğlu markets is widely accepted. For example, the introduction to a program broadcasted on the CNBC economy channel some time ago reminded us of this, with the Statement, “everybody will stop talking, now, the digits will talk”.

Alternatively, the critical political economy approach takes into account interaction between economic organization and political, social, and cultural life. It evaluates economic relations not only in the respect of necessities of the market but also within historical and sociopolitical contexts; it also focuses on power relations, and it emphasizes social relations rather than individuals - who are the sacred entities of liberal understanding. The main problem with this theory is the focus on organizational patterns of ownership and production rather than exchange relations in the market. (BoydBarrett, 1995: 1862; Golding and Murdock, 1997: 54-55).

Having listed the differing points between critical political economy and liberal political economy approaches, we have also presented the key points of these political economy approaches. To start with the critical approach examines events and phenomena through social relations rather than only economic relations. It also has an historical outlook. It focuses on the balance, or relations between capitalist enterprise and State intervention.

The most important characteristic of this approach is that it goes beyond technical matters and terms such as “efficiency” which are related to market mechanisms and which are imposed on us by the liberal economy, and focuses on moral matters such as justice, equality and common good. These are the features of critical political economy which are emphasized by Peter Golding and Graham Murdock (1997: 53).

Of course there are other approaches; for example, Vincent Mosco3 (1996), does not consider the question of balance between capitalist enterprise and State intervention. Instead, he focuses on the analysis of social relations which constitute social totalities (or society as an economic, social and political totality) and cultural spheres.

Mosco emphasizes the dynamics of social change and historical transformation as well as a dependence on moral philosophy which deals with social values and moral principles, in his analysis.

Alternatively, Golding and Murdock emphasize the balance between capitalist enterprise and State intervention, arguing that this can be analyzed under the heading of social praxis, thus admitting that they refer to questions of “value” (Boyd-Barrett, 1995: 186).

Media & Monopolization (4) Golding, P. ve G. Murdock (1977) “Capitalism, Communication and Class Relations,” Mass Communication and Society. Eds, J. Curran, et al. London: Edward Arnold and Open University, 21-44 (5) Murdock, G. Ve P. Golding (1973) “For a Political Economy of Mass Communications,” Socialist Register, 205-234.

(6) Garnham, N. (1990) Capitalism and Communication.

London & NY: Sage (7) Garnham, N. (2000) Emancipation, the Media and Modernity.

Oxford & NY: Oxford University Press

How can we continue the discussion in accordance with this general framework? In a narrow sense it can be said that critical political economy analyzes social relations that constitute production, distribution and consumption of resources; in particular power relations. However, this seemingly narrow statement actually has a broad meaning. It refers to the analysis of control and its existence in social and survival structures (Mosco, 1996). That is, human beings have to continue their lives within these power and financial relations, and depend on economic relations. In this sense, we refer to the struggle of existence.

In terms of the operations of mass communication or media, several political economy theoreticians (ex., Golding and Murdock, 19774; Murdock and Golding, 19735), treat the media as an instrument that maintains and legitimizes class relations. The transition from class relations to reproduction is achieved through the following processes: • Transition from intensive to conglomerate media ownership, • Formation of a distinguishable capitalist class through centralization tendency of the reciprocal links of those who control media and who have common interests, • Control through the media structures, profession ideologies and hierarchical institutions which are subject to external economic limitations and the exclusion of the opposition media through the functioning of market powers.

When we consider monopolization, we do not speak simply about monopolies but the tendency towards monopolization. “Strict” political economists oppose the liberal conception of a free market, laws of economy, competition, consumer choice and power, in which notions such as relations of production, social formation, political dimension, equality and justice are emphasized. This opposition requires us to consider how all medias have been transformed into commercial enterprises and how they are left to market mechanisms in a historical sense, and to consider how this so called uncontrolled, free sphere is regulated and how citizens are perceived as consumers.

‘‘According to the liberal political economy approach, we are “free” individuals with free choices dependent on the functioning of the economy and consumption rather than political subjects. Critical political economy criticizes this concept ’’

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Some researchers of the political economy of media emphasize the “media and industry” or “media and economy”. Defenders of this approach argue that the characteristics of the media tend towards monopolization. Since monopolization is considered to be inevitable

they instead question who will this monopoly belong to, and to whom it should belong to?

Nicholas Garnham (19906; 20007), a critical political economist, supports this approach. Garnham favors public service. He argues that if monopolization is inevitable it should be a public service. Garnham lists some characteristics of the information/communication industry that can be used to illustrate this point.

Firstly, the value of the information industries depends on the production of innovation unlike other industries; if a consumer already has information about something they will not buy it again.

In other words until consumption of information becomes a cultural product, individuals are not aware of whether they want to consume it or not. It is not a biological need like bread; we do not have innate knowledge of information. When the subject of need is information, we encounter the indefinite nature of the demand or estimation beforehand. This situation demonstrates how the dependence of a sector on information is risky economically. Because of this risk, a reasonable profit must be gained by investing not only into one product but into various products. Thus, entering the communication sector necessitates a large production and, more importantly, a large distribution capacity. When we consider examples from within the sector we notice that in the long term large enterprises absorb small ones. Competition between larger companies imposes the necessity of “renewal” depending on tested and successful formulas because of the risk factor. In this way, formulas that are accepted in a certain period will appear before us as if they are new. For example in Turkey while it seems that there are many different television channels, one can observe that all of them produce reality shows similar to one other.

This is presented to us as diversity.

Secondly, Garnham, defends the idea that the media cannot enter into competition over prices. Media products can be sold in wide standard of price categories. A publisher cannot compete with best selling books by making a cheaper book. This is because a book’s cost per unit is at a level which does not create a significant price difference. Therefore, a publisher will not be able to secure a place in the market with one book.

Thirdly, information is unrivalled in the public domain in terms of usage. If I eat a piece of bread, another consumer cannot eat that bread, because that bread has been consumed. Or if I go to see a doctor, the doctor cannot examine another person at the same time as me; thus there is a time limit on the service. Information has a different consumption pattern; a television program is not exhausted because I watch it, other people can watch it at the same time. Considering this in the context of resource scarcity, the price of bread is based on a

Media & Monopolization

criterion. However, if the resource is not scarce, then how can pricing be just and legitimate?

Furthermore, in considering how revenue will be provided to cover production in the information industry, we encounter uncontrollable conditions, such as the “korsan” problem. Until now confronting the “korsan” problem and solutions for the pricing problem have been dependent on copyright regulations, a new regulation had to be put into effect. Similarly, advertising has been used as a solution to pricing problems and this necessitated strict regulations. Advertising has a key role in the media market as it acts as a locomotive. Another strategy is to create cursory obstacles; by turning the public domain into a private domain through an interval phase. For instance, the broadcasting of

© Turcell Super Ligue 2

a football match is unique; it must be watched at a particular time, it is valuable. When this type of program is owned by a private channel it does not reach everyone who is interested. As a result, football culture and the network win. In this sense a campaign and its unique broadcasting create the monopoly.

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Finally Garnham argues that communication institutions are distribution networks rather than production units. Considering the situation of media industries today, we see there are some valid points here. Media institutions form a reproduction and distribution system; they are institutions based on common enterprise. There are shared, resources rather than substitutable, competitive products and services.

When we take into account the meaning of exchange within the flow of symbols, we notice that distribution networks have an essential importance. What happens is that a product is distributed which could easily vanish in a proper competition scheme. According to Garnham, fixed investment and the control/sharing of the flow functions like a club rather than a market.

In general, the example of the telecommunication infrastructure is used to illustrate the natural tendency towards monopolization in the communication industry. However, this problem does not relate to the structuring of media. Today the discussion of information, as a metaphenomenon which identifies economics, or about a network society shows that this process is about information production, distribution and marketing. Is this to leave the determining of distribution, circulation, sharing of the information to the market system? I think the real problem lies in this issue.

Until this point I have tried to draw attention to a basic argument: either one focuses on the media as a market or necessity of regulated functioning of the market by the State or transnational institutions; or one focuses on the quality of the information. As a result we encounter the inevitability of monopolization and necessity of media to be a monopoly organized as a public service. Considering either the market or information as the starting point, it can be seen that both are meaningful and acceptable. However there is a problem: although I have a necessary position and formation for the general description that I presented to you, discussions around these arguments require vast knowledge on economy which exceeds my capacity. I am not an economist. Economy is a field that I know partially and I deal with economy as far as it is related to the other fields in which I am interested.

Then, what was my purpose relating this economic information? Why did I choose this way of expression to explain the monopolization tendency and desired monopolization? Because my understanding and my point of view regarding this discussion is political. I am considering the necessity of emphasizing political and cultural factors when discussing political economy.

Considering the political economy of media and its monopolization tendency, we see that the means for people to access cultural products, for cultural diversity to be presented, for choices to be made within this cultural diversity, for different discourses to be developed and for new expression, are all congested.

‘‘The monopolization tendency in media impedes

cultural diversity, access to different cultural products, making different choices, developing different discourses and the diffusion and expression of them. What should be done to remove these obstacles and develop freedom in the media?

’’

We know the obstacles we encounter in the example of State monopolies very well because of our experiences. In addition to this, we are in an epoch which is defined by global dynamics. That is the

Media & Monopolization

dynamics of this issue are changing as a result of new actors and factors.

The question that interests me is what we should do in these conditions?

Here I can only outline the mental manipulation and propose to disclose this mental manipulation and to criticize it. In general there are two ways of criticizing - underground or above ground. I think that criticizing different points in the broadcastings, and courses, in panels such as this is an important communication and culturalpolitical practice activity. In order to develop this critique, I chose two sample texts for today.

One of these is an academic text on European film policies and competition law which is also published in Turkish. Anna Herold (2005)8, in her article “European Film Policies and Competition Law: Hostility or Symbiosis?” asserts that competition polices can contribute cultural aims to the European Union film policy without impeding its objectives. The main aim of this law is not to create cultural diversity, but to keep markets open, to regulate the functioning of the open market and to increase diversity of supply in this way.

However, according to Herold, although competition law is not liable to provide cultural diversity automatically, it has a significant potential to empower cultural diversity. Now, with reference to some examples given in this text, I will attempt to show how the competition law in the discourse of Herold provides cultural diversity and how the writer could or could not translate terms such as anti-monopoly, open market and competition into cultural diversity.

The first example is the decision taken by the European Commission on United International Pictures (UIP). As we all know, UIP, established in 1981 is the common distribution company of Paramount,

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(8) Herold, A. (2005) “European Film Policies and Competition Law: Hostility or Symbiosis?”

Communication Policies in the European Union and Turkey: Market Regulation, Access and Diversity. Eds., M. Gencel Bek and D. Kevin. Ankara: Ankara University, 293-336.

Universal Studios, and Metro Golden Mayer. Actually, the constituent agreement of UIP limits the competition since it represents these three companies. But, the European Commission by granting exemption in

the paragraph 3 of article 81 says that the UIP can provide a rational and effective distribution in a market with financial risks. In this way, an exemption is granted regarding the limitation of competition.

However, the Commission asked for several guarantees in return for this regulation. For example, it asks that part of the profits derived from advertising European films is invested into the European Union film industry and benefits the consumer in terms of price, quality and provision. The European Commission reiterated the exemption given to UIP in 1999. The fact that the guarantee given by the UIP in the context of these legal arrangements remains as a continual promise and was not fulfilled became a highly controversial issue. Herold takes this case as a negative example; this is not a problem. However, he argues that this negative experience will constitute an example in the future for Europe and the market structure will be taken into account rather than referring such guarantees.

Then, what is the result? The large distribution network in the USA is permitted to enter into the European Union market which can not be protected. Herold characterizes these “guarantees” as cultural guarantees. Is the investment of the European Union to the film industry something cultural? Does conflict between industrial investments of the United States of America and the European Union bring out a cultural conflict? Here, it is claimed that the industrial investments can guarantee cultural changes.

Another example that Herold (2005) gives relates to the license arrangements determining film rights between the companies of subscriber TV in the European Union and Hollywood studios. The French pay-as-you-watch television company TPS, complained that a satellite channel (Canal+) impeded competition. The Commission in its examinations in 2001 and 2002 conducted roundups to pay-as-youwatch television companies and examined the secret arrangements between the studios.

At the time that Herold wrote this article, a decision had not been issued, but a decision against the provisions of agreements forced by the studios was expected. What kind of effect will such a decision have?

It will be to the benefit of pay-as-you-watch television companies in Europe. Herold assumes that the decision will support the access of the independent producers including Europeans to this market.

Meaning the European market will become liberal; the European Union will actively contribute to the increase of cultural diversity in the film sector. How do the pay-as-you-watch television companies operate? They are capitalist enterprises and their chief impulse is profit, without considering their objectives and how they operate, how can we speak about their contribution to cultural diversity? It is impossible to understand.

Media & Monopolization

Here an understanding based on industrial purposes is imposed onto the cultural sphere. When the fraudulent interventions of American studios, who force every company to agree with them, come to an end and when the European market becomes liberal in itself; can cultural diversity be provided? Can cultural diversity be provided by protecting liberal, free European Union market and a unique European culture against America?

I will not go into details – in another example, the European Commission permitted the merging of Vivendi, Canal+ and Seagram, but it laid down difficult conditions. According to Herold, this is a dynamic and supporting attitude. Herold, keeping this example in mind, claims that corporate amalgamations make a crucial and valuable contribution to diversity; thus whilst he was supporting competition, he now dissolves the idea of competition. Herold argues that whatever the sources are, all films can access a distribution infrastructure through merging.

Then, why did we mention the market, liberalization and competition?

We should ask what culture has to do with this?

After the academic text of Anna Herold, which I presented to you as a first example and criticized, I chose the second example from a popular publication: a text from the interview that Turkish Time journal conducted with Aydın Doğan. I want to analyze this interview making reference to the book Plazaların Efendisi Aydın Doğan of Emin Karaca (2003) which is based on the interviews that he took with Aydın Doğan. As you know, Aydın Doğan is Aydın Doğan the biggest of the media bosses among a few media bosses in Turkey. The Doğan Media Group has a widespread distribution area and as Aydın Uğur (1991) says, this domination in distribution makes it obvious how he become the “master of our minds”.

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(9) Karaca, E. (2003) Plazaların Efendisi Aydın Doğan. İstanbul: Karakutu. “Medyada Yeni Dönem” Turkish Time, no. 87, Kasım 2005, 82-115

I will briefly describe this interview. Aydın Doğan regarding his purchase of Milliyet said: “It was cheap so I bought it”. We can find a similar evaluation from Mark Fowler, a former head of Federal Communication Commission in the USA: “Televisions are a kind of durable consumer good, a toaster with a screen.”

(10) Uğur, A. (1991) Keşfedilmemiş Kıta: Günlük Yaşam ve Zihniyet Kalıplarımız. İstanbul: İletişim

All these quotations show how the media which we describe in the framework of cultural products and practices, completely depends on the logic of commercial enterprise and how it is defined by economic terms such as competition, market, etc.

What do they understand from competition? When another channel Star Television went on sale it was purchased by Aydın Doğan. He also purchased the newspapers Hürriyet and Milliyet. He claims that he supports competition, but what does he do whilst supporting competition? When he purchases something new, he says “I purchased it not for the Doğan Group but for my family”. In order to have a legacy for his children, his daughters… Aydın Doğan explains his departure from his enterprise in the banking sector saying that his children “wanted media”. He has four daughters; he says that he purchased these media institutions in order to give to his daughters. In this way we see that how the notion of justice loses its meaning and how it is justified through personal myths. In a journal like Turkish Time, we encounter information about him saying “How nice a man Aydın Doğan is, he is very charitable, and he has four daughters and is fond of his family”. He is also a nationalist, and he emphasizes competition.

Even he himself is engaged in supporting competition…

All these examples impose on us an understanding solely based on economy. The actual problem here is the cultural industries that we have mentioned and our efforts to explain them in terms of the economy.

Under these conditions, when we say media or monopolization, our emphasis is mainly on industry. I think that this is the reason for the cultural products and practices experienced and to be experienced.

Cultural and political emphasis penetrates into every sphere by being wasted in favor of economic, management or business understanding.

This due diligence does not prevent us from dealing with deep concepts; rather it provides an entrance into more complex discussions and questions. Concepts such as justice and equality all depend on the functioning of the market and the regulation of this functioning. It almost leaves us no option, and closes all the windows. Nevertheless, I tried to approach this issue by entering from another window. I hope that I managed to express myself.

If a second session is held, I would like to present the bases of the assertion that in the case of television, the duality of culture and economy already turn cultural products and practices into commodities and television has no other window to open for itself other than parody and denial/negation.

Media & Monopolization

Media and Monopolization Part 2

Speakers: Gülseren Adaklı, Beybin Kejanlıoğlu

INTRODUCTION

P

atrick Le Lay, the CEO of the French public television channel TF1 which was sold to Bouygues construction company in 1987, defined the job of television channels in 2004 by saying: «Let’s be realistic TF1’s job is helping Coca-Cola, for example, to sell its product... what we sell to Coca-Cola is available human brain time...”. Thus, TF1 which used to be the most watched and quality television channel in France has become a channel for advertisements, just as Le Lay wished it to be, following its sale by the “socialist” government.

Interestingly no significant change occurred in the television rating system after the sale of TF1. This indicates that the old public television channel, that was established to suit the ideological environment of the 1980s, has successfully transformed itself to comply with the current commercial system in order to sell the ‘available brain’ time of its audience.

Apart from the media’s role concerning ideological factors, the other most significant feature of this change has to do with the ‘demand curve’. The media is becoming increasingly more successful at identifying the nature of consumers and turning audiences into loyal customers. The ‘young consumers’ that are frequently seen in mobile phone commercials are becoming favorites of the media and the companies that advertise on television. However, commonly commercials suggest this young consumer has more characteristics than youth. For example, he/she has to wear a certain brand of jeans, eat special fast foods or subscribe to a particular GSM operator.

Furthermore, he/she should adopt certain patterns of behavior. In contrast to the suggestions that there are no defined social classes in the current term these commercials strongly suggest and promote the existence of social classes. its conception of the world through television commercials using the identity of a certain type Continuation of consumer. p.54

Table 1: Largest media groups of the world (2002)

51

Company

Country

Total Income (M$)

Number of Employees

Known brands of the company

AOL TIME WARNER

USA

42.089

79.000

CNN, Warner Bros, Hanna Barbera, Time, Fortune, New Line Cinema

WALT DISNEY

USA

30.752

120.000

ABC, Miramax, Touchstone, Buena Vista, Disneyland

VIVENDI UNIVERSAL

FRANCE

21.428

83.000

Universal Music, Canal +, Havas, L’Express, Polygram, Cegetel (GSM)

VIACOM

USA

22.5

126.820

CBS, MTV, Nickleodeon, Paramount, Infinity Outdoor, Simon&Schuster

BERTELSMANN

GERMANY

16.5

64.800

RTL, Random House, Lycos, BMG, Barnes and Nobles, Gruner&Jahr

NEWS CORPORATION

AUSTRALIA

29.428

50.820

20th Century Fox, Fox TV, BSkyB, Harper Collins, National Geographic Channel

Media & Monopolization

(1) Tables about the media sector in Turkey are from: Bülent Çaplı and Hakan Tuncel (2005) Avrupa’da Televizyon: Düzenleme, politikalar ve bağımsızlık Türkiye, EUMAP: Ankara.

Table2: s. 204, Table3: s. 235, Table4: s. 236, Table5: 237.

Tables do not include some changes that have occurred recently. For example, some media companies that are affiliated with Star Media Group were sold through tenders during September and October (2) All terrestrial channels are accessible through cable and satellite systems (3) CNN Türk is a national news channel that broadcasts terrestrially. CNN Türk is a joint venture between Doğan Group and Time Warner from the U.S (4) Kral is a national music channel that broadcasts terrestrially (5) 66% of Digiturk is owned by a company from The Netherlands, Fintur. And 58,55% of the company Fintur, is owned by TeliaSonera and the remaining 41,45% of the shares are owned by Turkcell which is owned by Çukurova Holding.

However, 37,09 % of Turkcell is owned by Sonera

52

Table 2: Market shares of main media groups in Turkey (2004)1 MEDIA GROUP

TOTAL RATING OF TV CHANNEL

SHARES IN CIRCULATION OF NEWSPAPERS (%)

SHARES IN CIRCULATION OF PERIODICALS (%)

SHARES IN TOTAL ADVERTORIAL MARKET (%)

Doğan

17

39

38

38

Merkez

13

22

20

17

Çukurova

18

9

3

13

Star/TMSF

9

2

—

6

İhlas

8

4

—

3

Others (including TRT)

35

24

39

23

TOTAL

100

100

100

100

Table 3: Large media groups of cross ownership Doğan

Merkez

Çukurova

Star (TMSF)

National terrestrial television2

Kanal D, CNN Türk3

ATV

Show TV

Star, Kral4

Cable/Satellite9

Dream, FunTV, Galaxy

Kanal 1

Skyturk Digiturk digital package5

Joy, Nev TV

Radio6

Hür FM, Radyo CNN Türk, Radyo D

Radio City

Alem FM

Metro FM, Süper FM, Kral FM

Newspaper

Hürriyet, Milliyet, Posta, Radikal, Referans, Turkish Daily News

Sabah, Yeni Asır, Takvim, Pasfotomaç, Cumhuriyet (Partial)

Akşam, Güneş, Tercüman, Cumhuriyet (Partial)

Star

Type of Publishing (+ other activities)

Online, periodical, book, music + press distribution + book retail + printing

Online, periodical, book + press distribution + printing

Online, periodical, book + printing

Music + printing

Other media institutions

Production, Doğan News Agency, Media marketing

Production, Merkez News Agency, Media marketing

Eksen service provider, media marketing

Production, Ulusal Media News Agency, media marketing

Information and communication technologies

ISS, telecom, cable operator

GSM operator Turkcell, telecom, ISS, cable operator

GSM operator Telsim, telecom, cable operator

Non-media institutions

Banking and finance, energy, automotive, health, trade, production

Banking and finance, insurance, trade, automotive, steel, production, hotel management, naval and air transportation

Banking and finance, insurance, trade, energy, sports, construction, production

Energy, construction, hotel management

Media & Monopolization (6) Local Radios of the groups are not listed here (7) NTV of Doğuş Group, is a national news channel that broadcasts terrestrially (8) & (9) Cine5 and Fantasy are national terrestrial channels that can only be watched by their subscribers (10) All national channels that broadcast through cable TV are also available through satellite (11) CNBC-e is a joint veture of CNBC and Doğuş Group

Table 4: Small media groups of cross ownership

National terrestrial television

53

Doğuş

Samanyolu

Aksoy (TMSF)

TGRT

NTV7

STV

Cine58, Fantasy9

Cable/Satellite10

CNBC-e11, Discovery Channel Türkiye, NBA TV

Radio6

TGRT FM

Newspaper

Türkiye Gazetesi

Publishing

Periodical publishing, online publishing, basım

Other media institutions

İhlas News Agency

Information and communication technologies

ISS, telecom

Non-media institutions

Retail, food, commerce, education, health, construction, energy

(12) Ntvmsnbc.com is a joint venture of NTV and MSNBC (13) Doğan Yayın Holding, Investor Presentation May 2005 (Yatırımcı Sunumu Mayıs 2005), 2005

İhlas

NTV Radyo

Maxi, Supersport, Gala, Viva Burç FM

Show Radyo, Radyo5, Radyo Viva

Zaman Periodical publishing, ntvmsnbc.com12

Online publishing

Periodical publishing

Cihan News Agency ISS, cable operator Banking and finance, insurance, automotive, retail, food, hotel management, energy

Table 5: Newspaper market shares (2004 ; Source: Doğan13) Media group

Shares in total circulation (%)

Shares in total advertorial outlay (%)

Doğan

39

62

Merkez

22

21

Çukurova

9

5

Star/TMSF

2

1

İhlas

4

2

Others

24

9

Finance

Media & Monopolization

‘Bourgeoisie’ as a totality conveys itself and its conception of the world through television commercials using the identity of a certain type of consumer.

THE MEDIA MONOPOLIZATION? (See table 1) This is what makes the issue of monopolization in the media a topic for lively discussion. Profit making mechanisms are intersecting with ideological manipulations. These mechanisms transcend the actual number of actors in the market. The media market as a totality turns upside down its individual existence and relevant capitalist assumptions.

However, it is still valuable to start to look at the issue from the fact that media ownership is becoming the priority of fewer hands. We should consider the issue of media ownership at a transnational level and in Turkey. One of the most important indicators of the following data is that it shows that the media companies do not only deal with the media sector but also have initiatives in other sectors as well. Another fact to be emphasized here is that these companies have not limited themselves to a few sub media sectors.

MEDIA OWNERSHIP IN TURKEY (See tables 2 to 5) These tables indicate that the media sector has an oligopoly structure both in national and transnational markets. The data above clearly shows that there has been a dramatic decrease in the number of media companies. Although the monopolistic tendencies of the market are not new, it seems that this tendency has augmented. The inverse proportion between the first and second columns of the table on newspaper market shares shows a clear market share in the sector.

In this regard, we can observe that a media group, Dogan Media Group, is the leading organization concerning shares in the advertorial market; but in proportion to its advertorial shares it has the least circulation. The company has 62% share in advertorial and a 39% share in circulation.

However, in the row of ‘others’ we can observe that the share of other companies, which comprises the 24% of the sector, is very low, at 9%.

In other words, these tables indicate that while one media holding has been controlling more than the half of newspaper market, tens of small players are trying to increase their share in the other half of the market.

MONOPOLIZATION OR CONCENTRATION OF OWNERSHIP? 54

Following Star TV’s hand over to the Doğan Group, from the Turkish

Savings Deposit Insurance Fund (TMSF), a member of Doğan Group presented an assumption as if it were fact: “There is no monopolization in Turkish media. This is because monopolization is a term that can be used only when a group reaches a level of dominance over the market as a whole. The situation in Turkey could be described as concentration of ownership at the most and this is a situation that can be observed everywhere in the world.” (Çolakoğlu, 2005).

And another member of the same group stated the following: “In the first place, concentration and monopolization are indicators of different forms of ownership in media sector. Second, concentration is not a process that has to end up with monopolization. Third, technological developments and scale economics necessitate concentration in the media sector. Fourth, and for me most importantly, competition law and editorial independence are more important than the problem of ownership.” (Can, 2005).

According to the Editor in Chief of the daily Referans, Eyüp Can, those who are resentful of the media are in the wrong, but he, as a director of the most monopolizing media group in the country, is in the right.

Thus, we have the right to declare this claim as illegitimate without applying to any comparison. However, we have to differentiate our method

of argument from that of Eyüp Can’s. We should take a detailed look to the assumptions included in the above quotation.

The assumptions are: 1) there is no monopolization in Turkey; 2) monopolization and concentration are not the same thing; 3) even if there is concentration (he doesn’t say that there is), this is something inevitable due to the developments in technology and scale economics; 4) editorial independency is more important than the problem of ownership.

This assumes monopolization as a graver sin than concentration. It can be falsified in all of its elements. For example, having four large actors in the television sector does not mean that there is no monopolization either in this sector or in media sector. If the tendency within the market is to prevent the entrance of different capital groups, then we can call this process monopolization. Even if the importation of papers is controlled by one media group and the group also controls distribution channels, then the monopolization is already a reality in that sector.

However, in order to avoid maintaining the discussion in a manner of statistical and numerical comparisons, we should dig a little deeper

Media & Monopolization

into the issue. The 200 years of capitalist modes of production make it crystal clear that there is a tendency towards monopolization.

Growth ▶ saturation ▶ crisis. For any kind of industry concentration of capital in the most basic expression is the growth of companies in their field of business and the increase of production. Concentration means “proletarianization of a part of the bourgeoisie by the means of another part of the bourgeoisie…” (Mandel, 1991: 50). This process heads towards the centralization of capital. We notice in this phase of the process the gathering of different capital groups and their subsequent growth. Monopolization is a term that covers all of this process (Sweezey et. al., 1975: 29-43). That is, the term monopolization does not suggest a situation where there remains only one actor in the market. It is the name of a process and a relation (see Wood, 2001).

THERE IS MONOPOLIZATION IN TURKISH MEDIA …

There is monopolization in Turkish media. It is simple but real. This is the basic rule of the capitalist mode of production. In Turkey, a country where the capitalist mode of production reigns, this fundamental law is also in power. In spite of decreases in competition, or numerous actors in the market, the tendency towards monopolization is never ending in such a system. At least, there have been only minor changes since the beginning of 19th century.

In this context, we should notice the following indicators in the Turkish media sector: 1) It is absurd to say that there is no monopolization in Turkish media while there is vertical integration. If a media company achieves horizontal integration through its newspapers, periodicals, televisions, radios, books and music companies, and at the same time can distribute and sell its products by itself, this situation cannot be dubbed as concentration.

2) There is monopolization in some parts of the media in the real sense of the word. For example in, paper importation, distribution and printing of newspapers and periodicals, etc.

3) Turkish media companies are not only spread within the media sector but they also become affiliated with the finance, trade, retail, fuel & oil distribution sectors.

WHAT KIND OF A THREAT IS MONOPOLIZATION AGAINST HUMAN RIGHTS AND VISUAL CULTURE?

55

Why is the reduction of the actors within the media sector a threat to other sectors? The reason is, the media is the most important component

in the structure of ideological production in neo-liberalism, which brings an accumulation regime. Although the number of actors within the media sector is more than expected, the ideology that is presented and produced by the media can be regarded as the same. That is we should not talk about the policies of individual companies but we should speak about the policy of media as a whole. We emphasized this point at the beginning of this presentation.

The publication policy of the media as a whole can be explained by the four factors listed below: 1) Maximization of interest earnings 2) Advertorials and sponsorship 3) Sensational program formats 4) Neo-right ideology We should also consider conditions of work within the media sector.

There was no trade union within the media sector until the 1990’s.

It is a sector with one of the highest mobilization rates, and members of it suffer the lowest job security in the market.

Monopolization is a particular threat to the following items: • Representation of dynamics out of the monopoly • Qualitative publication content • Job security for the workers within monopolies • Employment of those who want to work within those monopolies • Press ethics and ideals, responsibilities of those working in these monopolies • Ideals of freedom and equality in general The Turkish sector encounters all of those threats. There are complex relations within the monopolization process. Those who take part in this sector are achieving vertical and horizontal integrations aside from their initiatives in other sectors. As a result of the process of the spreading of the media, the sector enjoys a high level of effect over society.

The Doğan Group does not only own Hürriyet newspaper or Kanal D television, they also earn the most important part of their interest from oil distribution, and works with the most important companies in the country, such as İş Bank, Koç Holding etc. The Doğan Group also has ambitions to spread its effect into the international arena. Its press facilities in Europe and its partnership and cooperation with German media company Bertelsmann are indicators of this ambition.

The main issue is the threat to public interest that has emerged from the changes in media structure in the period of the new capital accumulation process. Moreover, some of those threats have not yet become obvious.

Media & Monopolization

Table 6: Doğan Media Company : horizontal and vertical monopolization scheme13 TYPE OF MEDIA ►►►

Newspapers

Periodical

Book

TV

Radio

Music

Hürriyet Posta Milliyet Radikal Referans Fanatik Gözcü Turkish Daily News

Ailem ve Ben Atlas Auto Show Capital Ekonomist Elele Focus Güncel Hukuk Maison Française Tempo

Doğan Book Doğan-Egmont

Kanal D Star TV CNN Türk Dream

Radyo D Radyo Foreks

DMC (Doğan Music Company

Production

DHA Doğan Dış Ticaret (paper import) DPC14

DHA Doğan Kağıtçılık Doğan Dış Ticaret DPC (paper import) DPC

ANS Hürriyet Production

Radyo D

DMC

Distribution

Yay-Sat

Yay-Sat

DPP

Ultra Kablo

Sales-Marketing

D&R Doğan Online

D&R Doğan Online

D&R Doğan Online

Bimaş D&R Doğan Online

PRODUCTION CHAIN ▼▼▼

(13) Total earnings of Doğan Media Holding which comprises 22 sub companies within itself was $ 1.044.417.000 in 2004. Proportions of the interests earned by Doğan Holding with respect to different sectors are: 68% energy, 22%: media, % 10: others ; www.bigpara. com/holding1204/ download/DOGAN_ investor-October-2005. pdf, s. 37-41 (14) Doğan Printing Center also works for the market along with its service for the companies that are affiliated to the group and it represents the half of newspaper consumption ; www.dpc.com.tr

56

DPP

Bimaş Doğan Online

D&R Doğan Online

References: • Can, Eyüp (2005) “Türkiye’de Media tekelleşiyor mu?”, Referans, 10 Ekim;http://www.referansgazetesi.com/haber. aspx?HBR_KOD=24755 • Çolakoğlu, Nuri (2005) “TV dünyasında yeni yapılanma”, Referans, 5 Ekim;http://www.referansgazetesi.com/haber.aspx?HBR_ KOD=24203 • Freepress (2005) “Who owns the media”, http://www.freepress.net/ content/ownership (retrieved on: 13 Kasım) • Hürriyet (2005) ‘İstanbullu gençler cep telefonlarını her sene yeniliyor’, 10 Kasım

• Mandel, Ernest (1991) Marksist ekonomi kuramına giriş, translated by. A. Ünlü, İstanbul: Ünlü Publishing • Önderoğlu, Erol (2004) «Medya Tekelleşiyor, Haber Metalaşıyor», http://www.bianet.org/2004/11/10/47629.htm (retrieved on: 11 Kasım 2005) • Sweezey, Paul ve Paul Baran ve Harry Magdoff (1975) Çağdaş kapitalizmin bunalımı, translated by. Y. Koç, Ankara: Bilgi • Wood, Ellen Meiksins (2001) “İlişki ve süreç olarak sınıf ”, translated by. E. A. Aytekin , Praksis: 1

Media and Monopolization Questions & Answers

M

ustafa Gürbüz (Audience): I am a representative of two periodicals, named Yankı and Orkun. One of them is published in Istanbul and the other in Ankara. If we consider globalization, we can say that this process is threatening all nations in Europe and Turkey. It threatens us with its capital that is generated from the energy and oil sector as well as the war industry. The whole of the visual and printed media is controlled by these powers. The thing that is threatened the most is the traditions, customs and language of nations. The language that has come to be spoken in Turkey is half Turkish and half English. I listened to your speeches and noticed that you also speak that way. Our language is being assassinated. This is not something that is happening only to our language but it is a problem for all European languages. If one manages to destroy the language of a nation, it could also bring that nation to an end. Today smaller countries are in a struggle for survival. My question is what are your thoughts on these problems that you haven’t mentioned during your speeches? Thank you.

Beybin Kejanlıoğlu: Well, you certainly have a point in what you have said, and there are some points I could raise in objection. As I said before, there are two speakers here and we told you that it is not possible to mention all the necessary points about media and monopolization.

There is no doubt that the issue is very widespread.

However, I have to make one point, which is that communication technologies became a part of the war industry during the Cold War, in particular in United States of America. Take computers for example, they emerged out of the war industry. The Teflon pan that we use in our ovens developed from the war industry. Launching satellites into space was the result of the practice during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States. The first, Sputnik, was launched in 1957.The United States launched the first of its communication satellites in 1962 during this period.

57

Herbert Schiller strikingly expresses the fact that the whole communication policy of the U.S. has something to do with the mentality of war. He says that the defense policy in the U.S. is a policy of communication and that the U.S. communication policy is the communication policy of the whole world. This is also a claim of Schiller, Mattelard and other political economists who study international communication. Regarding the issue of language, I can say that this is the part of your question that I take most seriously.

Speakers: Gülseren Adaklı, Beybin Kejanlıoğlu Moderator: Volkan Kavas Your emphasis on culture is very important. I would like to ask at this point “how should we approach the issue of culture?” You won’t like the word I am about to use, but should we look at culture from within the elitist interpretation of it? Or, should we look at it from within another interpretation that understands culture as a dynamic phenomenon that enters into interaction with different practices and evolves under the effects of these interactions?

It seems to me that your question is about the ways in which we should regard the issue of language. I believe that if we start to produce nationalist emphasis on the issue we would end up at a very conservative point. Therefore culture is a dynamic act that is influenced by the interaction that emerges out of communication. Moreover, some words cannot be translated into other languages. There is an issue of non translatability. The translation itself is not an activity of translating words from one language to another. Translation is a very serious activity that has become an academic field of study. I thank you for your question. I hope my answer satisfied you.

Gülseren Adaklı: You should not think that we have not talked about imperialism just because we did not use the word “imperialism” in our speeches. The issue of the European Union’s cultural diversity policy is a very clear example of how imperialism works in this field. We are now in the wake of EU membership and the capital tries to create a world by taking itself as a model. If the capital is now in the phase of imperialism then it would certainly have reflections in countries such as Turkey.

However, this effect of imperialism is not just in the field of language. Instead, we should talk about imperialism in the entire cultural arena. It requires a very widespread discussion that is beyond the limits of this panel discussion.

© Artima, Oct 1958

Media & Monopolization

Beybin Kejanlıoğlu: Mr. Gürbüz has mentioned words which originate from different languages that we used during our speeches. The word “media” itself is a very widely used term and has its origin in a foreign language. What should we say instead of the word “media?”

We have a Turkish expression meaning “communication devices” but does that signify the same thing as the word “media.” The concept

Media & Monopolization

of “media” sometimes being used to mean an institution, a medium or environment, can we find a word with the same connotations in Turkish? You have noted many words without clear counterparts in Turkish. Should I use a Turkish word that is not used prevalent in ordinary usage instead of the word “culture?”

Pınar Erdoğan (Audience): Perhaps I should raise a question. We have talked about monopolization and mentioned two different approaches to this process. I guess we could say that the process of monopolization produces obstacles for both liberal approaches and critical approaches. That is, monopolization is an obstacle against the freedom to access diverse opinions and news about an event and an obstacle against the freedom of expression. Looking from within such an approach, could we say that monopolization also produces obstacles for liberal theories as well as critical theories?

Beybin Kejanlıoğlu: Monopolization is a strong threat to liberal understanding. This is because in terms of liberal understanding the market is guided by an invisible hand; meaning that all actors enter into competition within the market. The liberal understanding uses the same interpretation for cultural products as for the circulation of goods.

‘‘Liberalism in its ideal sense represents a powerful

freedom. It foresees an exchange within a free circulation. Since monopolization is a process that obstructs free circulation, it is not a process that liberalism can endure forever

’’

Critical theories emphasizes that the market of liberalism has by nature a tendency towards monopolization. Since monopolization is a natural market tendency it requires constant regulation. There has to be regulations when an entrepreneur attempts to enter the market.

Liberal theory has to strive to harmonize what is happening in reality with what ought to be happening according to the theory.

Audience: I just wanted to know whether any regulation authority exists in Turkey. Because we’ve got one in France and it is for media.

How does it work, could you expand on this?

Gülseren Adaklı: Yes, there is a regulation authority in Turkey like in France.

Beybin Kejanlıoğlu: Moreover, it was formed with the influence of France. Actually when there was no private media in Turkey, a High Council was formed. The laws of this were also based on French laws.

However, as far as I know, the structure of this institution has changed 58

three times during 1980’s in France; in every change of government, a restructuring process has been carried out.

Gülseren Adaklı: In the sphere of private media, there is a Supreme Council of Radio and Television (RTÜK), which is similar to the ‘Conseil supérieur de l’audiovisuel’ (CSA) in France. I could talk about them if you are wondering about their functions but as Beybin said, you can guess its functions since the council in Turkey was formed by taking its French counterpart as a model.

Beybin Kejanlıoğlu: By the same token the Telecommunication Authority the Competition Council has also become involved in the regulation process in the broadcasting media with the recent amendments to the law. They have also become responsible for frequency allocation to the new channels.

Gülseren Adaklı: As you may know one of the most important problems in television broadcasting is the lack of a regulation concerning frequency allocation. This was within the mandate of the Supreme Council of Radio and Television. However, there is now an ambiguity regarding which organization is responsible for this. With regards to this we should talk about convergence1. You could ask what I mean by convergence. In an environment where media institutions are converged, the supreme councils of media also come together. For example we see OFCOM in United Kingdom and AGCOM in Italy. All sub-sectors of media such as telecom, informatics and broadcasting (in Italy press is included) has come to be under control of a single supreme authority.

The highest authority in Turkey is determined as the Supreme Council of Communication. The council also makes frequency allocations.

However, most of the frequencies are occupied by certain media groups. That is to say those frequencies, which are within public domain, are now under occupation by the media groups. There is no legal ground for this. This is called wrongful seizure in law and nothing else. İlkin Mehrabov (Audience): I would like to ask something about what I have observed in the field of access to news. When we look at the sources of most of the news articles in the world we observe that they come from news agencies such as Reuters, AP or CNN. These institutions are advocates of U.S. and European imperialism and it is a pity that they are the sources of news. For example we have followed the news articles concerning the expulsion of United Kingdom from Zimbabwe only from British news agencies. Zimbabwe’s level of access to media and communication devices is very poor. There are some alternative news networks such as Indymedia but they are also

Media & Monopolization (1) Transmission of the written, audio or visual content that was previously transmitted through different channels, through the same infrastructure that is provided by the new communication technologies, is known as convergence. Despite this phenomenon is presented only as a technological innovation, the truth is that the importance of it lies in economic level. It is not only the technology that converges but also the different sectors and industries merges and converges with each other. When regarded as a whole, this process is the process of profit maximization of large capital groups by bringing different fields of interest together.

approaching the news subjectively. I would like to ask whether it would be possible to establish an alternative news distribution network. Do you think it is possible?

Gülseren Adaklı: I am very pessimistic about this issue. I would like to attend the panel discussion tomorrow. I believe that an alternative world is necessary to establish an alternative media. This is because the production of information has become a very expensive business and is now under control of a few powerful centers. No matter how hard you try to establish an alternative it would be very difficult. It is not only a matter of economic power; we are talking about the conventional practices of journalism and the language they use. We also have to transform that language. I believe that this is by itself an important political project.

You could see my point as reductionism but I cannot think of anything different. May be we should discuss it more. But it seems impossible, impossible…

Tolga Korkut (a journalist from Bianet): Being one of the speakers of the panel discussion of tomorrow, I am also as pessimistic as you are.

However there is one point that I would like to mention. Do you think that this impossibility is due to the foreseeable conditions that would be brought about by capitalism? The justification you give for your argument could be summarized as the solidification of the center and its inability for flexibility. I know that you are working on this issue. I would also like to ask what does citizen journalism or other alternative organizations mean in this process. Aren’t they sustainable?

Gülseren Adaklı: I certainly believe that there is always a possibility for a change. What would we be doing here if there was no possibility for that?

It is for certain that we always have to work to create more opportunities.

I don’t underestimate any attempts to reach this end. I personally am also involved in such attempts. I search for channels through which to express my thoughts and to get organized. I believe, as you also said, that this impossibility has to do with the current conjunction.

We cannot take a breath in this conjunction. We are trapped within this current climate. We are trapped both politically and economically. There is no channel for us to express our thoughts or convey alternative ideas to wide masses. We cannot even make our students listen to us. The cultural ambiance has congested all of our arteries. These metaphors do not sound good but sometimes I really feel that I cannot breathe.

These feelings are not meaningless. We have no right to put forward the alternative ways by ourselves. We have to see our limitations. We observe alternative attempts.

We can speak about an alternative newspaper. I will not mention its name here. It started publishing with great effort but now faces bankruptcy. It

59

faces bankruptcy not only economically but also ideologically and politically. Their claims at the beginning were very progressive but they weren’t strong enough to carry those ideal claims. They weren’t aware of that. They didn’t know how much power they could cope with. This awareness is very important. That is we should be realist and demand the impossible.

Audience: My question is along the same lines. You have just said that it became very difficult for existing communication structures to be broken down both due to the prevalent conventions in the media and journalism and to the powerful monopolies that have control in this field. However, there is also another point that these institutions that we call media are not media in its full sense. I believe that structures in the media could be developed and become monopolies as far as they satisfy social needs. Maybe what the media is doing is to create and then satisfy the demand. Maybe this is the way that the media keeps itself standing. I also believe that changes in society will ultimately lead to the destruction of all the structures.

Do you think that the changes would also bring a condition where the positions of media and anti-media also change? Do you believe that the existing strategy will continue like this?

Gülseren Adaklı: Everyone struggles to change the way things are, not only us but also the capitalists. Turkish capitalists would like to enter the European Union and they want to achieve certain standards. They want to achieve a certain order and stability to provide a guarantee for the profit they gained. Of course there are some within the capitalists’ circles who do not want to enter the EU. Maybe we could make use of this process to a certain extent.

A media that abides by certain rules would serve our purposes. We could understand what we are up against. A transparent State and a transparent media would be of more use to us in enabling our access to information. This is not to say that such a development could last for ever. It would certainly change. I am not sure whether I have completely understood your question or not but my projection will certainly become a reality. However, I cannot make any projection regarding the direction of this change.

Oktay İnce: Actually it doesn’t make any difference to me whether Star television is owned by Aydın Doğan or by its former owners. It seems to me that the issue of monopolization is an issue within the bourgeoisie itself and not our concern. The real concern for us lies in digging up what lay beneath the Şemdinli incidents. We have to establish ways to gather true information about the incidents. This should be our real concern. As far as I understood you have carried out some research into this issue.

Media & Monopolization

I would like to mention something. Monopolization is required both for economic and political control. We can discuss broadcasting in Kurdish as an example of this. We can talk about how the Supreme Council of Radio and Television intervened with the issue to prevent any meaningful broadcast. We observe how the State approaches the issue of control of not only television channels but also radio stations.

There is a discussion about allowing private TV channels to broadcast in Kurdish. Local televisions channels have applied to get permission to broadcast in Kurdish, but the state insists on keeping the production of these broadcasts for State television. What we call monopolization for the media in Turkey is something that is desired for a high level of political control.

While giving examples from local television channels you have said that they aren’t capable of carrying out good quality broadcast in terms of content. But I would like to raise an objection to that. I believe that we should favor local media enterprises even if their broadcasting qualities are lower. I think a specific emphasis is required on this point.

And why they are important? They are important for us to understand relations between them. They are important to answer your questions such as why local media is not permitted to be established or why broadcasting in different languages is prohibited.

It is important for us to know these points in order to have a deeper understanding about the political and economic dimensions of the issues we have discussed. However, I think that there is something more in what we call the local media.

If we think of local media as something that is bound to regional borders then it would be something that closes itself. We should deal with connections and relations within the sector. We should also give importance to the establishment of a policy of public interest along with the cultural broadcastings. We don’t have to identify “public” with a certain ethnicity. We should also look at the interactions that they have and to the connection point where we could spark a wider political transformation.

Gülseren Adaklı: Why do you think it is required?

Oktay İnce (Audience): It is required because local broadcasting is outside the monopolization.

Gülseren Adaklı: That is exactly what is important to me.

Oktay İnce: I made that point just because of the negative implication you made on the issue. I thought your words implied that there is no fundamental difference between local and national broadcasting institutions.

Gülseren Adaklı: No. Oktay İnce: That is if there were one or more local television stations in Diyarbakır or Hakkari, we would learn more about what had happened in Şemdinli and that information would be closer to truth. That is what I was trying to say.

Beybin Kejanlıoğlu: Monopolization is not an issue within these structures. The control mechanisms in Turkey were not always established with the consent of the people, they were usually established by force.

That is because when we look at the political history of Turkey, what we see is a country with an army that is very powerful in political life.

If you look at the issue from a structural point of view, you could say that it is not important whether Aydın Doğan or the previous owners of the TV channel owns the channel now. Names are not important in some respects. But they also have some importance in other respects.

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«Popstar Alaturka»: a formated tv-product © Startv.com

Gülseren Adaklı: It is very important. We can learn nothing apart from what is shown in the mainstream media. We have no channels from local media. But let’s consider if we did have such a channel, I am now trying to elaborate the issue from a wider perspective. It is generally very difficult to get objective information. How do you think the local media could convey information to us? Do you think the news they produced would have a chance to be cited in national media? They wouldn’t even be regarded as a credible source.

Media & Monopolization

Or, let’s assume that the dominating media quotes the news article from your radio, the Voice of Şemdinli. They will announce your news by saying, “Voice of Şemdinli claims that such events have happened.” They will not say that ‘according to’ the Voice of Şemdinli. This is because there is a concept called, accreditation. This reflects the structural reasons behind medias taking sides. It takes sides by its very nature. There are reliable sources and there are also unreliable ones. You know how alternative and critical thoughts or actions are manipulated by dominating media before being presented to us. When you think about this manipulation mechanism, you would think that it would be better if no news came from Şemdinli. This is because it is possible to reverse the original news before broadcasting it.

Imagine yourself in the shoes of the State of Republic of Turkey, would you then allow local media to produce news articles in an environment of freedom. Would you leave them to do what they want? This is the natural way that the things are. They won’t let broadcasting in Kurdish or Laz language or Caucasian. They will allow such things when the European Union insists on some reforms or some changes. These changes will happen in this way but I wonder if they will solve our problems. When you analyze the community benefits of the European Union you will observe a wide range of protocols, suggestions.

I didn’t know that there was such a vast amount of written culture.

When I researched it, I observed that in various parts the European Union documents suggest protection of minorities, their languages and their ethnic culture. You encounter such expressions throughout the EU texts. However, we should look at what lies behind those proposals and requirements and their motivations. Are they really aiming at some good or not? The motivations that lie behind these ideas usually determine the possible results that could come up if they are employed. That is why, as Beybin said, it is very important to look at the motivation and how it is absorbed by the dominating media.

Volkan Kavas: I have to finish this session here. I would like to thank panelists on behalf of Videa. I also thank you for attending the session.

Beybin Kejanlıoğlu, Gülseren Adaklı: Thank you.

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Alternative Media

Alternative Media

E

Speakers: Eser Köker, Gürşat Özdamar, İrfan Aktan, Tolga Korkut, Petra Holzer Moderator: Özhan Önder

ser Köker (Communication Faculty, Ankara University): First of all, let me talk about the queerness of being here. Written texts are the main material that I study, look at, investigate, inspect. This meeting is however about visual culture. So, even though my speech will be based upon written references, I will do my best to tackle the functioning of alternative publications.

Firstly, when it comes to alternative publications, it is necessary to focus on what makes it “an alternative”. For example, one of my investigation dealt with feminist alternative publications – with reference to both Western and Turkish examples. When we want to study feminist movements in Turkey, we can realize that visual and audio documentation on that topic is not abundant at all. In contrast, the written field provides a relatively considerable amount of resources.

According to me, this is very important, all the more because the amount of such audiovisual resources is much lower in Turkey than in the West.

We know that most of Turkish women are non-literate. Therefore, they communicate more via voice and eyes. The number of those who continue to have education is considerably low and only 3% of them can go to university. Inspite of this, there is almost no alternative publications targeting them. On the other hand, the first written publications for women date from more than 100 years.

If we bear in mind that women newspapers and journals were first published at the end of the 19th century, we will notice their strong will to make their voice heard. These publications reveal a feeling of closeness amongst this limited circle of educated women. However, as far as broader communities and populace are concerned, it’s like they have neither voice nor eyes. I think that this is a problem peculiar to Turkey. If we mention about being alternative and independent which is an anti-commercial point of view -, it’s seen as an attitude probably connected to a political entity; as if being alternative is not an end in itself. It only makes sense when it’s interrelated with politics.

That’s why I thought that a combination like feminist alternative publishing is needed. Of course editorial boards can be inclined towards journalistic and/or formal innovation. But according to me what is important as well is the sense of belonging to a community and establishing an alternative-look for the community itself.

With respect to both Western and Turkish examples, we can examine (feminist) alternative publications under these two attitudes: staying 62

away from commercial ambitions or escaping from media patronage.

Either in written or visual field, feminist alternative publishers stay away from business or would like to give it up. In Turkey or some other countries we see good examples of alternative newspapers, journals and fanzines in which it is not allowed to use advertisement and to advertise any products. This is a common feature of almost all feminist alternative publications. In addition, collective ownership system stems from a similar philosophy of these publications. It is considered that when ownership belongs to a private person or a private group, it holds back the existing attempt of answering to a collective demand. Because of this, these publications are carried out under collective control. Examples of alternative publications which, on one hand, do not include advertisement, and, on the other hand are owned by a private company does not exist. At least, I did not see such examples in the literature I looked at. Some discussions about media patronage particularly stem from women movement’s opposition to the mass media and their relationship with it.

Since the beginning of the 1970s in European and in the USA, and since the late 1980s in Turkey, women described their relationship with commercial affairs as a kind of “dance with death.” This quotation is not from me. It belongs to a Dutch thinker and researcher, Lisbeth von Zuben who studied first this subject. What the “dance with death” idiom means is that feminists first objected to women’s representation in the media and they wanted to develop proposals to destroy those images; it was however impossible for these proposals to assert themselves in the media. After some time, this relationship turned into such a way that they started to work for commercial media. Therefore in this paradoxal relationship, they had both to fight for a better portrayal of women in the mass media while they were employed by their own opponents.

‘‘Usually, it is thought that the objective of those who study alternative publications is to destroy the stereotypes generated by the mainstream media.

Feminist publications also established its existence in the media towards that purpose.’’

Gürşat Özdamar (Independent media maker, video activist):There are some people saying that: “another world is possible.” But, is another world really possible? I think no. Because we have only one world: the powerful world of media with its TV channels, newspapers, etc.

It is such a powerful world that it is not that possible for us to create

Alternative Media (1) Dogan Group was established by Aydın Doğan as a small firm.

Now it is one of the biggest holding in the sector of media and petroleum distribution.

Cf. p 51.

Ciner Group was established in 1978. This group makes investment in many sectors and it started to work in the media sector since 2002.

It is also one of the bigest holdings of Turkey.

(2) Baris Bandi (“Peace Band”): a radio program in Acik Radyo, an alternative radio channel.

(3) Eventhough it dates from about 150 years Türk-Telekom was officially established in 1995. Türk Telekom is the State owned Turkish telecommunications company. It has recently been privatized to Oger Telecom.

(4) For İstanbul Indymedia, visit: http://istanbul. indymedia.org/ (5) Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, political activist, and a prolific author and lecturer.

Chomsky is credited with the creation of the theory of generative grammar, considered to be one of the most significant contributions to the field of linguistics made in the 20th century

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(6) Edward S. Herman American economist

an alternative and to be independent. As long as a medium, a TV channel or a newspaper, is in the hands of Doğan Group or Ciner Group1 or any other holding companies, we will automatically encounter in it the interests of the owners.

Before the American occupation of Iraq, anti-war movements could not be heard in Turkey because of the concentration of media ownership.

Their demonstrations were rarely reported, or even never. They were treated as if nothing was happening. Even when protesters created their own channels (TV, radio, etc.) to disseminate their activities, they did not create a new alternative. Most of them were not journalists. They were also the ones who believed that another world is possible. But what made them behave like journalists? Why did they feel the necessity of reporting their views and actions? Because common media does not devote space to this. On the contrary, do not media workers chase only after news? They do; even if they are aware of these problems.They behave in this way for the sake of their job. Therefore alternative speeches, or even artistic performances like Barış Bandı2, cannot become news or be presented under other forms because of the publishing or security policies imposed to newspapers.

Despite the fact that we do not have yellow press cards, we are members of the media community. We feel like journalists but we have a different identity from the other journalists. Most of the time, we are involved in the events; we are often the ones who create those events. We, however, want our ideas to be transmitted correctly.

For us, it is not important to possess sophisticate equipment. A video camera is enough. It is not even needed to have a deep knowledge in cinema or advanced technical skills. Besides, internet is an extraordinary platform where to publish almost everything. And since anything can occur at any time: the camera should never be turned off. For example, in November 2005, workers who were protesting the privatization of Türk-Telekom3 were attacked with gas. When I went there somehow I felt the responsibility of recording this event. Nobody forces me to do that but I want to record this kind of event which is usually manipulated in the mass media. Being there, you want to convey the truth.

This kind of demonstration is often announced within the internet groups. For example, ecologists, anti-militarists… there are lots of groups. It is very beneficial to be a member of those groups. Lots of indymedia4 groups report news much earlier in a much more correct way compared to the mass media.

During the events, you need to be there to catch the true moments.

For that, you accept to breathe gas. Maybe you are not safe but it is exciting to be there. You do not earn money; this is not about money.

You accept to pay for your equipment if needed. You must be cool and courageous. While doing your reportage, you may need to explain why you are there to everyone who asks – especially to the police.

You must have convincing reasons. The most important thing is that you should not try to create another scene. It is better to show things as they are. Whatever happens will create its own reality. Video camera can belong to you but videos, as we say, belong to everybody.

In fact you document the real life, a life in which you are also. You are a witness.

Tolga Korkut (Journalist at Bianet): Alternative media is a considerably wide field. I will mainly focus on journalism and on my practical experiences. To be able to make this speech I have to turn back to Chomsky5 and Herman6’s model. First presented in their book Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, their ‘‘propaganda model’’ analyses the mainstream mass media, its structure, and its connections with business and politics.

Let’s recall briefly this model; which is still valid eventhough it was first published in 1988. According to this model all published news pass through 5 successive filters: ■■Firstly, the ownership of the medium, ■■Secondly, the medium’s funding sources ; to which extend advertising determines the publication?

■■Thirdly, its sourcing. It is connected to the degree of reliance of the media as far as its sources of information are concerned.

■■Flack is the fourth filter. It refers to potential pressure groups attacking the media for supposed opinions.

■■Chomsky and Herlan’s book was released in 1988, during the Reagan times. The fifth filter was thus called anti-communism.

Now, it is known as norms.

Everyone now knows very well that anti-terrorism, anti-globalization, being against free world, are also used as a control mechanism. Then, there is this discriminative approach: to create valuable victims and invaluable victims. For example victims of Katrina storm are valuable and therefore covered in the media while the death of Bolivian workers who try to create trade-unions against Coca Cola is never seen as news in the big dominant media.

Alternative Media (6) Mehmet Tarhan (born 1978) was imprisoned for refusing military service in Turkey as a conscientious objector.

Tarhan had been sentenced to four years in a military prison for disobedience after refusing to wear a military uniform, a sentence that is evidently the longest ever given for such an offense in Turkey. He was released in March 2006 after spending several months in prison.

(7) John Pilger (born October 9, 1939) is an Australian journalist and documentary filmmaker from Sydney, primarily based in London, England.

Pilger is a strong critic of the institutions and economic forces that structure ‘mainstream’ journalism. He is particularly scornful of pro-Iraq war commentators on the liberal left, or ‘liberal interventionists.’ In addition to criticizing the policies of President George W. Bush, Pilger has also taken aim at British Prime Minister Tony Blair, whom he believes to be just as culpable as President Bush for the invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq.

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(8) Bianet stands for independent communication network and 80% of its expenditure are met by European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights (EIHDR).

Since we investigate alternative media, here I will mention about justice and journalism. What are we pursuing in fact? After the economic crisis in 2002 in Turkey many journalists became unemployed. What is strange is that I observed then the existence of so many people who worked in the common media but wanted to work for alternative media. But there is a fundamental problem. They were not qualified.

While doing some things about alternative media it is important to be careful with the terminology and to avoid clichés. I will give some examples. This is something valid for Turkey. In the local press you can read articles about Mehmet Tarhan6’s demonstration. Common media had not acknowledged what is the difference between conscientious objector and total objector till Mehmet Tahran’s demonstration even though it was on the agenda in the previous lawsuits. They still do not want to bring this to agenda. They made a demonstration without permission. There is nothing like this. Demonstration in Turkey is not dependent upon permission but declaration. But when you say this, you in fact legitimize the violence in the intervention of any authorized power available over there. When you start talking about personal arming or privatization to produce news it undoubtedly refers to another topics.

When you mention about individual arming you have to talk about the companies producing weapons, the economy of individual arming. In fact this is a matter of creating a context.

A sentence by John Pilger7, one of the masters of research journalism can be a good guide: “It is not enough for journalists to see themselves as messengers without understanding hidden agendas and the myth surrounding the message.” This can also be a guide for the alternative media. It is something important to bring to the agenda the news that is hidden.

Let’s talk a little about human rights and how they can be hijacked.

The fact that human rights became an ideology in the spread of neoliberalism is a topic that journalists should study and report. I am not qualified to talk about this. The best source from which I benefited most has been Baskın Oran’s materials about minorities and globalization.

But I can say this: human rights legislation is beyond what we know; at least, what we know as long as we do not search. Turkey and most of the countries ratified it.

‘‘While states, companies, etc. are transgressing human rights they are actually transgressing the agreements they ratified themselves. Nevertheless, this is not recalled.’’

For example, while water and natural gas are being privatized in Bolivia, and that people are demonstrating in the streets in Cochabamba, nobody

has talked about UN’s agreement of dominance of natural resources.

If it was talked about, what would happen? This is another issue.

But legislation exists. As time passed systematic torture has been reduced, but torturer are still not judged in this country.

To produce news implies to use every tool. If we are trying to avoid the dominance of common media, it is necessary to use all the tools including the tools offered by common, dominant system. One of these is the right of information acquisition. This is a very important right unfortunately rarely used in Turkey.

Talking about using every tool, there are still lots of things to be said about new media such as free networks, structures without hierarchy.

It is also very important to benefit from local media. For example we mainly do this in Bianet8. An example is the ‘Şemdinli issue’ that we have experienced for the last weeks. Şemdinli is a district of the city of Hakkari in south-eastern Turkey. From September, 1st to November, 9th, 2005 there had been more than 15 bombings.

The resulting investigation developed into a major political issue in Turkey in the first half of 2006. While common media could not find how to present news about Şemdinli, the newspaper of Yüksekova Haber presented excellent news about it. They did their job very well and these details are now appearing. Yüksekova Haber in the first day presented the police panzers which were considered as details by others.

In this sense, it is necessary to benefit from local media. Furthermore when local media reaches a broader spreading it can change things.

I think that internet seems to change lots of things as well here. As if alternative media does not have problems with time and new news.

If another world is possible, internet is in this sense very cheap and can store long-lasting memory material very well. I think that one of the things that alternative media should rely on is to reobtain the exercise of utopia that we lost.

Irfan Aktan (Journalist at Express magazine): Some points that Tolga specified are so important that I would like mainly to talk about them. Alternative media, cheapness of the Internet are all controversial subjects. Is that cheap? If yes, how many people use it in Turkey? How possible is alternative media on Internet?

For example about 4 or 5 months ago I collected from a website some information about the ‘flag event’ in Mersin. There were there fascist and racist comments and I saw that it was not something peculiar to that website ; there are hundreds of similar websites. During the Mersin events, Devlet Bahçeli, chairman of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), recommended to learn how to use a computer instead

Alternative Media (9) The Democratic People’s Party (Demokratik Halk Partisi, DEHAP) was a left-wing, pro-Kurdish political party in Turkey.

DEHAP was founded October 24, 1997.

It is the continuation of the People’s Democratic Party (Halkın Demokrasi Partisi, HADEP), which was banned by the Constitutional Court for alleged connections to the outlawed the Kurdistan Workers Party. At the last legislative elections on the 3rd of November 2002, the party won 6.2% of the popular vote, thus not reaching the 10% threshold for gaining representation in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey.

On August 17, 2005 DEHAP announced its merger into the Democratic Society Party (DTP) founded by Leyla Zana.

of going out or taking part in the lynching. Then, I thought that the dream of making a revolution via the Internet or the dream of changing the media are in fact valid for both sides.

Secondly, while we are talking about alternative media we have to discuss about what alternative is. I cannot discuss this but when I talk about alternative media I will always mean by it the instituitons supporting left-wing thoughts and human rights and rights of workers. One of them can be Ortadoğu newspaper or Özgür Gündem. On the contrary, when we consider common media, we mainly point the finger at Hürriyet newspaper.

I will try to tell you my experiences and to summarize what kind of discrimination I was exposed to, while doing my job as a journalist.

My first news was published in Bianet and my first interview in the Express journal. I was so often vexed because of Nadire Mater, my editor in Bianet; we argued very much. The main reason for this was the terminology I used. I graduated from a faculty of Communication, and made my summer training at Radikal newspaper; there, I was warned after my first news. You understand the terminology very quickly. And you start to use it, thinking that this is the rule of this job. After a while, it is very difficult to free yourself from this. For example, in Bianet, wording of news report is very important. It’s necessary to be careful about not transgressing downtrodden people’s rights.

I will try to tell you my experiences and to summarize what kind of discrimination I was exposed to, while doing my job as a journalist.

My first news was published in Bianet and my first interview in the Express journal. I was so often vexed because of Nadire Mater, my editor in Bianet; we argued very much. The main reason for this was the terminology I used. I graduated from a faculty of Communication, and made my summer training at Radikal newspaper; there, I was warned after my first news. You understand the terminology very quickly. And you start to use it, thinking that this is the rule of this job. After a while, it is very difficult to free yourself from this. For example, in Bianet, wording of news report is very important. It’s necessary to be careful about not transgressing downtrodden people’s rights.

I am making an archive study about common media structure in the 1950’s which reminds me of Hürriyet. I have realized this in this study: in 1950’s all the news were like announcements and even very small 65

details could be news. The news which surprised me most was the fight between a soda seller and his customer. News begins like this: ‘Mehmet came near Ahmet who sells soda in Hardarpaşa gar and bought a bottle of soda from him. Mehmet who paid for soda drank it.

After finishing it Mehmet gave back the bottle to Ahmet. Somehow the bottle fell down and was broken down. After this Ahmet and Mehmet fought. Ahmet stabbed Mehmet from different parts of his body. Then Ahmet surrendered. Event caused a big sadness in Kadıköy.’ This is obviously fictitious or narrative news. Sometimes some sources of news refer to narrative source. We are not sure. It is not certain.

But we just heard it. Something like that could happen. With the typical news’ terminology, it is tried to create a kind of plausibilty.

But usually we cannot see the sources of news. On one hand this is the basic trouble of common media. On the other hand it can be said that people are gradually becoming estranged with the news of 2000’s.

I was an editor of a newspaper in Diyarbakır. What I experienced there as Tolga indicated was that I observed personally the importance and benefits of local media. But there is something like this over there. Journalists and political power are very close to each other. A great deal of news is destroyed not to disturb governor, head official.

Because of that you incorporate the terminology of political power and speak it unless you are powerful. Every reporter sees the news from their own world. If the institution you work for makes you feel that it can be a news then you see it. Nevertheless, if your institution says this news is seen in this way then you also see it in the same way.

If I did not write the word ‘captives’ in Radikal instead of ‘prisoners’ perhaps I would have been working there. I learnt about media ethics in my faculty of communication but I understood later that media ethics do not have sense at 100% in this huge structure. Because in this huge structure media and political power are very close. Media is not the voice of downtrodden groups, it does not tell their troubles.

I have been a reporter of Express journal for a long time about 3-4 years. Many years can pass really during which you are exposed to discrimination so much that you get tired very much. Actually in this process I started to understand what human rights mean. Because we, reporters, are exposed to three different discrimination. Firstly, we are exposed to police discrimination. If they do not know you (and your institution), you are already marked down as a troublemaker.

For example while working in Bianet, when police asked “For whom do you work?” I first said that I was from an Independent Communication Network. I understood that the word ‘independent’ peeves them but I learned that a little bit late. Because of that I had troubles. If you say Bianet as your institution they say “What Bianet is ?”, etc.

Alternative Media

(10) KAOS GL is a group founded in September1994, to unite Turkey’s LGBT people in the struggle against discrimination. Their underlying philosophy is that the liberation of homosexuals will also free heterosexuals.

KAOS GL has been publishing the journal KAOS GL (now a quarterly) since it was founded, and it briefly published a monthly newspaper, PARMAK (Finger), in 2001. The group owns the KAOS Cultural Center, in which many cultural activities, meetings and film shows are held and where the first LGBT library was built.

(11) RTÜK (Radyo ve Televizyon Üst Kurumu, Superior Institution of Radio and Television) is an institution that controls broadcast, establishment etc of radios and TV channels.

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For example, one day, there was a demonstration of DEHAP in Diyarbakır.

Thousands of people were demonstrating. I was trying to reach a bus so that I could go on its top and take photos of the crowd there. There were policemen in front of the door. They asked my media and I replied, Bianet.

They suddenly became happy. One of them said to his colleague “Allow him, he is from Diyanet”. (˝Diyanet˝ is a state institution - Presidency of Religious Affairs in Turkey - and the pronunciation of ˝Diyanet˝ and Bianet are very similar). Then I realized that their warm welcoming was due to this misunderstanding on my reply.

days and stop talking. That man, however, does everthing to be in Hürriyet newspaper.

Secondly, when going to news, journalists can be exposed to discrimination coming from their own colleagues. Reporters from common media often overshadow us. How do they do? They draw their huge cameras and don’t show respect to us. They are close to the police, and for the audience, they convey the truth.

Petra Holzer (Documentary filmmaker, curator): I want to mention four different points about alternative media. First of all, I will mention about social advertisement with respect to projects of creating alternative media. I will give some examples about this.

Thirdly, we are exposed to discrimination in the structure called as alternative media. We are in fact 7-8 persons working in Express. I am the reporter from Ankara. The incomes of the journal are shared equally by the reporters. None of us imposes a specific terminology and says that we will use this title or we will do that. A kind of consensus has been created since there is no employer like in the feminist examples Eser told. Adverstising is accepted in Express and survives thanks to it. We became hopeful when the project of Birgün newspaper appeared. Birgün newspaper was a fountain of hope for reporters who were unemployed, who could not work in common media somehow, and who knew that they could not work for it. I started to work there.

The thing that shocked me the most was that I was about to be sacked since I wore a bermuda shorts. When I produced news about homosexuals, people reacted so much since I insisted on writing ‘gay’. Kaos GL, however, uses itself the words ‘gay’ or ‘lesbian’.

In the same newspaper, everybody was supposed to get a health insurance but nothing happened. Besides, my salary was not paid regularly. In the end things came to such a point that workers had to go on strike. I had already left.

While you try to defend the rights of trade-unions, workers, kurds, downtroddens, they do not see you as one of them. You call the President of a trade-union, he/she says that he/ she can make a declaration after a few

© http://www.kaosgl.org

The alternative media claiming to be sensitive about right transgression have been divided into many different parts. We cannot just sit here and talk only about alternative media or its possibilities.

Now if someone says “let’s publish a newspaper, we have this amount of money”, I run away from there as fast as I can since I do not have any hope about this topic.

I proposed the name ‘Alternative Media: Possibilities and Problems’ for the panel. I looked at what is happening in the European Parliament and in Europe. I look at some examples of public TV channels and at the so-called “open channels” as well. An additional report was submitted to the European Parliament. According to it, the European Parliament defends and supports the right of publication of people, citizens that is improvement right of Open Channels. It is said that efforts are spent to do that. These kinds of measures are very important for democratization and local participation. There are also many reports relying on the McBright commission - a report released for UNESCO in 1984.

In that report, it is stated that it is necessary to support more effectively cultural diversity notably to counterbalance “americanization” in the United Nations. According to this report, each individual has the right of communicating and participating, expressing their own ideas. The 18th article of the European Human Rights Agreement says that each person has the right of communication and of reaching any source of information and publication. In addition, funds are supposed to be provided to support this. Well, where are these funds? Where can we find these supports, how can we establish these networks? Turkey should also have ratified this agreement. As far as I remember Bianet found funds from Europe. If there are such possibilities, how can we use them in Turkey?

Since I have lived in Turkey for years I want to do things here. Since I live here I want to take this responsibility. What if we would create a communication platform between all NGO’s and would make the revenues of RTÜK11, communication and advertisements go back to people. There is not still a frequency service area for television channels, no revenue from frequencies. Do not people have the right of using such a fund? In the common media, for example, air times

Alternative Media

can be asked from the main broadcasting periods but of course not at 4 a.m. Because of that, many 30-minute documentaries are broadcasted at 4-5 a.m so that only our insomniac citizens can watch them!

As far as education is concerned, I have been giving lessons in the academy for fifteen years. But outside the academy, I try to give lessons on alternative media and to develop models. Ten years ago we used to make two-week studio studies. To be able to implement that, we established a scholarship system. We realize there that it is not essential to have four-year communication education. But of course sometimes this education is needed. But sometimes such a four-year background may not be necessary to work with media. Can not we solve this case differently? That is, cannot lessons be given outside these institutions?

In these studios, we observed quick improvements after just some basic input. Students were coming from all over the world and were supporting each other. They have deep discussion about the media and they act with solidarity. Cannot we make it real in Turkey? We tried to commute these workshops on a local scale. We gave lessons to ten women in Diyarbakır.

Once, we did the same in the area of an earthquake. After our former international experiences, we tried to provide local education. As far as the women group is concerned, the lessons were about video camera usage and editing.

Our goal was to make people write their own stories and narrate them instead of imposing our ideas from the outside. We wanted both that they had an opportunity of having a job and that they made their voice be heard more loudly. For the last two years, we encounter social advertisements concentrated on internet in the forms of short movies coming from Ethem Özgüven’s studio. This is the only thing that we have been doing for the last ten years. But we do not have place in the common media. What creates content and determines broadcasting time is advertisement. Advertisement has a very big interactive power. Can we produce other things; can we differentiate ourselves from regular advertisement, via a new way that is by using an aesthetic proper to the things that are true to us?

We work on this with different experts. We produced many short movies about environment, violence against women, or violence in the football.

Reactions are varied. For example, in the movies dealing with violence against women, instead of showing beaten, downtrodden women we showed abstract images. Afterwards a group of women said to us that these movies were too abstract to be used for an educational purpose in the districts. Women coming from Diyarbakır, however, preferred our approach by saying that ‘we prefer these ones, more dramatic versions are useless for us’. While facing the dramatic versions these women could not internalize the topic and the events tackled by the films.

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© Still from Alethea (2007), the latest documentary directed by Petra Holzer with Ethem Ozguven

They could not find themselves over there. The movies that I made circulated were produced for a campaign. They were displayed in training within the context of this campaign. Now they are broadcasted by a local TV channel with some other movies in the region of Bela Horizontal in Brazil, a region with a population of 120 million people. Other films against drugs and tobacco are shown on CNBC-e for a year and a half. Screenings of these women’ films were effective in the training in the districts. In that sense we can say that it was successful. We claim that these social advertisements help to provide social responsibility and peace.

Eser Köker: In my opinion, to be able to be alternative means not to be contented with the good things told us in the times of social welfare state. Therefore, our limitations should re-define the freedom of communication. We are the objects of the “manufacture of consent”, we are creative, doers and objectors. Here our friends catch others’ lives with their video cameras, they look for another understanding of freedom of speech. We should be self-confident; and disperse our words more and more. Özhan Önder: Communication is reciprocal, mutual. It is something that taker gives and giver takes in return. The fact that I communicate with you democratically is related to the pre-acceptance of our equality; and to your capability to recognize it.

Alternative Media

First of all, it is not probable for common media to set such equality.

Posta newspaper has a circulation of 600.000 copies and it publishes whatever it wants to. Whatever it publishes is sold. Our topic is the media that claims to be alternative in opposition to the mass media. The media having this claim has to be careful about everything, a kind of tongue twister that Posta newspaper does not need to care for. A few minutes ago, İrfan and Tolga mentioned about the determinism of terminology.

Since this is a lecture on visual culture I want to talk about that. The tool I want to talk about is video.

I will go on with a reference to Jean-Luc Godard’s film Histoire(s) du cinéma. This example says that all the things that can be expressed with texts and contribute to the writing of History, can exist as well, being even more beautiful, with the video medium. In the video Gürşat showed us, if Gürşat hasn’t told us, there is no information like ‘There was a demonstration with such aim in front of ATV”. What I want to highlight is that images can express so much by themselves. Eventhough Gürşat or a voice or a text does not give any information, video provides a kind of omniscience with its capability of recording mimics and gestures. We understand the 17th day of Mehmet Tarhan’s hunger strike with video recording. Video camera was shaking and went closer to someone’s face and we see the anxiety on his/her face and then the nastiness on another face. We obtain information different from the one that can be obtained verbally related to the atmosphere there.

Feminist movements helped so much the video becoming such a tool. In the late 1960’s feminist artists, thinkers, and particularly performance artists, used video aiming at discovering their own bodies against the representations of woman’s body in the media. As a result of this, video appears as an efficient tool to produce an alternative. During this process, women feel themselves beautiful whatever their mensurations were, being happy with their bodies, recording their bodies with mobile video cameras with the aim of establishing another relationship with their bodies even though common media always emphasizes that the mensurations of a beautiful woman should be 90-60-90. They grabbed the opportunity, the right, to use their video cameras for exploring their own bodies.

On one hand, feminist video-makers launched a trial of changing, transforming, even destroying the forms of relationships established between their bodies and the stereotyped representations of their bodies.

It was mainly an objection against the concepts and forms that capitalism generated and presented us. On the other hand, it shows us that video can definitely generate another kind of information, with creativity.

In fact, there are two obvious possibilities that video provides us. The first possibility is that video witnesses what is happening around, the

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movement, the action. Second one is that it activates this relationship of testimony. Both of them are properties that can produce data for the writing of History. Of course, we can progress by disordering the forms that exist. But the main thing is to belong to somewhere, to be defending an idea. Even if we do lots of revolutionary things, our reasons, our goals for acting are primary.

Therefore what makes the alternative identity of a medium is its transformative potential, this potential of activation that I mentioned before. I want to finish my speech with a few references to the manifesto for political films of Godard. In the first article of his manifesto, he says that we should make political movies, with political methods (article 2), and thirdly, that if the second article cannot be fulfilled, first article cannot be real. On the contrary, it can be something that can damage the struggle.

‘‘Therefore it’s our duty as well to elaborate political

methods when it comes to the distribution of our films. No matter if the film you have made is political, you have to find ways to screen it in order to reach more people and more broadcasting networks.’’

Index Film directors Ak, Behiç ~ p 24 Akad Ömer, Lütfi ~ p 28 Akat, Lutfu ~ p 27 Antonioni, Michelangelo ~ p 9 Berke, Baş ~ p 24 Bilge Ceylan, Nuri ~ p 36 Blom, Maria ~ p 17 Boyadjieva, Lada ~ p 9 Bonmariage, Manu ~ p 16 Borgers, Nathalie ~ p 18 Bucquoy, Jean ~ p 16 Buzzanca, Lando ~ p 6 Campion, Jane ~ p 17 Chabrol, Claude ~ p 5 Clair, René ~ p 5 Coppola, Sofia ~ p 17 Dardenne, Jean-Pierre & Luc ~ p 16 Demirkubuz, Zeki ~ p 36 Dobchev, Ivan ~ p 9 Donev, Petar ~ p 9 Erksan, Metin ~ p 27 Erman, Hürrem ~ p 27 Ertuğrul, Muhsin ~ p 26 Franco, Jesus ~ p 7 Ganev, Hristo ~ p 9 Gibson, Mel ~ p 35 Giritlioglu, Tomris ~ p 30 Godard, Jean-Luc ~ pp 4, 66, 67 Gondry, Michel ~ p 35 Grau, Jorge ~ pp 7-8 Güney, Yılmaz ~ pp 28, 30, 32 Petra Holzer ~ pp 65, 66 Ipekçi, Handan ~ p 29 Jean, Patric ~ p 16 Kavur, Ömer ~ p 28 Khanyutin, Yuri ~ p 9 Kryeziu, Ekrem ~ p 10 Meyer, Paul ~ p 15

Michel, Thierry ~ p 16 Okan, Tunç ~ p 28 Olivier, Richard ~ p 16 Özgentürk, Ali ~ p 29 Ozpetek, Ferzan ~ p 12 Pasolini, Pier Paolo ~ pp 12, 13 Pavlov, Ivan p 9 Piskov, Hristo ~ p 9 Pontecorvo, Gillo ~ p 5 Qosja, Isa ~ p 10 Refig, Halit ~ p 28 Resnais, Alain ~ p 5 Rivette, Jacques ~ p 8 Rossellini, Roberto ~ p 12 Rouch, Jean ~ p 40 Schmid, Hans-Christian ~ p 14 Schuster, Angelika ~ p 18 Scola, Ettore ~ p 13 Scorcese, Martin ~ p 9 Sharlandzhiev, Lyubomir ~ p 9 Simavi, Sedat ~ p 26 Sindelgruber, Tristan ~ p 18 Sopi, Agim ~ p 10 Staykov, Liudmil ~ p 9 Storck, Henri ~ p 15 Tasheva, Irina ~ p 9 Terziev, Ivan ~ p 9 Truffaut, François p 5 Vertov, Dziga ~ p 40 Vautier, René ~ p 4 Vazov, Yanush ~ p 9 Visconti, Luchino ~ p 13 Wertmuller, Lina ~ p 17 Yılmaz, Atıf ~ p 25 Zeki Heper, Alp ~ p 29 Zhelyazkova, Binka ~ p 9

Actresses, actors

Films

Accorsi, Stefano ~ p 12

A bout de souffle ~ p 4 Alethea ~ p 66 Avoir 20 ans dans les Aurès ~ p 4 Aynaros Kadısı ~ p 26 Bataille d’Alger (La) ~ pp 4, 5 Beyaz Mendil ~ p 27 Bir Kavuk Devrildi ~ p 26 Blood Ceremony ~ p 8 Bon shans, inspektore! ~ p 9 Boran ~ pp 39, 40 Büçük Adam Küyük Aşk ~ pp 29, 30 Cartas de amor de una monja ~ p 8 Ceremonia sangrienta ~ pp 7, 8 Chronique des saisons d’acier ~ p 16 Déjà s’envole la fleur maigre ~ p 15 Désaccords d’Evian ~ p 4 Du Beurre dans les tartines ~ p 16 Enfant (L’) ~ p 16 Equilibration ~ p 9 Eternal Sunshine... ~ p 35 Fate ignoranti (Le) ~ p 12 Fermeture de l’usine Renault...~p 16 Giornata particolare (Una) ~ p 13 Gurbet Kuşları ~ p 28 Hakkari’de Bir Mevsim ~ p 30 Hıçkırık ~ p 27 Histoire(s) du cinéma ~ p 67 Hudutların Kanunu ~ p 28 Il Decameron ~ p 13 Il fiore delle Mille et une Notte ~ p 13 In Transit ~ p 24 İstanbul Sokaklarında ~ p 26 Jivotut si teche tiho ~ p 9 Karanlık Dünya ~ p 27 Klinkaart ~ p 15 Kronen Zeitung... ~ p 18 Kukumi ~ p 11 La caduta degli dei ~ p 13

Bender, Eva ~ p 6 Berger, Helmut ~ p 13 Blain, Estella ~ p 6 Çaman, Hadi ~ p 28 Cansel, Feri ~ p 6 Dequenne, Emilie ~ p 16 Giardano, Daniella ~ p 6 Inselel, Mete ~ p 6 Loren, Sofia ~ p 13 Mastroianni, Marcello ~ p 13 Okay, Arzu ~ p 6 Poyrazoğlu, Ali ~ pp 6, 28 Rénier, Jérémie ~ p 16 Şeniz, Seher ~ p 6 Stamp, Terence ~ p 12 Viviani, Sonia ~ p 6

Last Temptation of Christ (The) ~ p 9 Lichter ~ p 14 Lost in Translation ~ pp 17, 35 Ludwig ~ p 13 Madame Jeanne ~ p 4 Maisons de la misère (Les) ~ p 15 Marchienne de vie ~ p 16 Masjävlar ~ p 17 Misère au Borinage ~ p 15 Njeriu prej dheut ~ p 10 Nur Baba ~ p 26 Operation Spring ~ p 18 Otobüs ~ p 28 Pasqualino Settebellezze ~ p 16 Passion of the Christ (The) ~ p 35 Pençe ~ p 26 Petit soldat (Le) ~ p 4 Ponedelnik sutrin ~ p 9 Religieuse (La) ~ p 8 Rojet e Mjegulles ~ p 10 Roma città aperta ~ p 12 Rosetta ~ p 16 Salkım Hanım’ın Taneleri ~ p 30 Salò, le 120 giornate di Sodoma ~ p 13 Sansür ~ pp 24, 28 Secteur postal 89.098 ~ p 4 Selceto ~ p 9 Sessiz Ölüm ~ pp 38, 44 Soğuk G. Aşk Hikayeleri ~ p 28 Su Da Yanar ~ p 29 Susuz Yaz ~ p 27 Teorema ~ p 12 Uzak ~ p 36 Vurun Kahpeye ~ pp 26, 27 Yılanların Öcü ~ p 27 Yol ~ pp 30, 32 Yorgun Savaşçı ~ p 28 Za Gospozhitzata i Neynata ~ p 9 Zabriskie Point ~ p 9 Zavrushtane ~ p 9

Acknowledgements & Credits We would like to thank the following institutions, organisations and people for their contribution to the Human Rights & Visual Culture Project: 11th Festival of European Films On Wheels (Başak Emre) 7 Arte (Blerton Ajeti, Lulzim Hoti) Gülseren Adaklı Ankara University Faculty of Communication (Bülent Çaplı, Bülent Özkam) Behiç Ak İrfan Aktan Ankara Cinema Association (ASD) (Ahmet Boyacıoğlu) Ankara University Faculty of Communication Art Group Haide (Yasen Pehlivanov, Nina Pehlivanova) Association of Documentary Filmmakers in Turkey (BSB) Thomas Balkenhol Berke Baş Bianet British Council Ankara (Emrah Güler) Cine Script (Gaelle Debaisieux, Nicolas Guiot) Cinestesias (Caroline Fournier) Council of Europe European Youth Foundation (EYF) Cras Tibi (Zoltan Aprily, Zsofia Hatala) Murad Efendiev Nezih Erdoğan Can Ertuna Euphoria Borealis (Lasse Lecklin, Susanna Okker) Express Magazine FilmArche (Sandra Budesheim, Björn Schürmann) Franti - NISI MASA Italia (Sebastiano Puciarelli, Francesca Repetto) Goethe Institut Ankara (Emel Öztürk, Sabine Hagemann-Ünlüsoy)

Henrich Böll Stiftung Istanbul (Ekrem Eddy Güzeldere) Petra Holzer Inter Space (Kyd Amanda Campbell, Stoycho Stanchev) İstanbul Indymedia Hüseyin Karabey D. Beybin Kejanlıoğlu Kino5 (Diana Levin) Eser Köker Tolga Korkut METU – GISAM METU Archeology Society METU Cinema Society Middle East Technical University (METU) NISI MASA France (Laure Croiset, Yamina Jalili) NISI MASA Turkey (Esra Demirkıran, N. Pınar Erdoğan, Volkan Kavas, Emre Koyuncu, Esra İyidoğan, Ufuk Özgen, İlkin Mehrabov, Gülçin Şahin, Selda Taşkın) Nisi Mini (Kristoffer Lieng, Jesper Lindgren) Özhan Önder Tan Oral Kazım Öz Gürşat Özdamar Ethem Özgüven Emre Özkapı Özge Özyılmaz Radio METU Güliz Sağlam SineGöz Belmin Söylemez Tarkan Tufan VideA (Tennur Baş, Gülsüm Depeli, Fisun Güven, Oktay İnce, Özhan Önder, Banu Onrat, Alper Şen, M.Ali Üzelgün)

Editorial staff for the book: Editors-in-Chief Matthieu Darras (NISI MASA European Office) Esra Demirkıran (NISI MASA Turkey) Co-editors and English revisers Jude Lister (NISI MASA European Office) Camilla Buchanan ((NISI MASA European Office) Cover Illustration Murad Efendiev Design-Layout Emilie Padellec (NISI MASA European Office) Decoding, Translation and Editing Neriman Akcanlı Bilge Demirtaş Mustafa Gül Fisun Güven Esra İyidoğan Emre Koyuncu İlkin Mehrabov Banu Onrat Ufuk Özgen Gülçin Şahin Özlem Sarıyıldız Selda Taşkın Güney Yıldız Apologies to anyone we have unforgivably forgotten.

The Human Rights And Visual Culture project is supported by the Council of Europe and the Heinrich Böll Foundation.

This project was coordinated by NISI MASA (European network of young cinema) and the members of VideA-NISI MASA Turkey with the collaboration of: ANKARA CINEMA ASSOCIATION www.europeanfilmfestival.com BSB - ASSOCIATION OF DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKERS IN TURKEY www.bsb-adf.org MUNICIPALITY OF ÇANKAYA www.cankaya-bld.gov.tr GOETHE INSTITUT - ANKARA www.goethe.de/om/ank/tuindex.htm BRITISH COUNCIL TURKEY – CONNECTING FUTURES www.britishcouncil.org.tr For more information: NISI MASA - European ffice 10, rue de l’Echiquier 75010 Paris - France Phone: +33 (0)1 53 34 62 78 Mobile: +33 (0)6 32 61 70 26 E-mail: europe@nisimasa.com: www.nisimasa.com NISI MASA Turkey Email: turkey@nisimasa.com Blog: http://nisimasaturkey.blogspot.com

Š Human Rights and Visual Culture E-Book ~ NISI MASA ~ June 2008