Genç Sinema Grubu

Alternate Name:

[Young Filmmakers Group, The]

Year Founded:

1969

Year Disolved:

1969

Preceded By:

Sinema 7 [Cinema Club 7], Türk Sinematek Derneği (“Sinematek,” 1965) [Turkish Cinematheque Society, “Cinematheque”]

Superceded By:

İstanbul Fotoğraf ve Sinema Amatörleri Derneği [Istanbul Amateur Photography and Cinema Society] (1974), Halk Sinema Grubu

Location:

Şişli, Istanbul/Turkey

Film Formats:

8mm, 16mm

Notable Contests:

Devrim Sineması Şenliği [Revolutionary Cinema Contest/Festival] (1970)

Publication/Newsletter:

Genç Sinema Devrimci Sinema Dergisi [Young Cinema: Revolutionary Cinema Magazine], October, 1968 – April, 1971.

Associated Filmmakers/People:

Resources:

Soner, Ahmet. “Tarihçe”. Belgesel Sinema, (Spring-Summer 2003) Vol: 3.

“Genç Sinema Grubu” [The Young Filmmakers Group] is a Turkish collective (and the name of a club) of young amateur filmmakers, who made non-commercial political short films between the years 1968 and 1971. Militant to the core and influenced by the May 68, the collective members, with extremely limited financial resources, were the node of resistance against the Turkish film industry of the time—Yeşilçam [Green Pine] as much as they were the active protestors of what it represents—capitalism and imperialism (as well as the War in Vietnam). That is, the Group members embraced the amateurism as their political praxis to remain outside the country’s dominant film industry and to fight against it (as well as the ideologies that the industry embodies) as if they are “cinematic militants”. The collective also published a cinema magazine between the same years, Genç Sinema Devrimci Sinema Dergisi [Young Cinema: Revolutionary Cinema Magazine]. Shortly after the 1971 Turkish Military Memorandum, the Group was dissolved; the movie club and magazine were closed and a good many of the collective’s films were destroyed by the military junta.