Special Panel on “Contemporary Turkish Cinema” at the Fajr International Film Festival, held on Friday, 28 November at the Festival Palace in Shiraz, brought together Ceyhan Kandemir — university lecturer, media researcher, and TV director — and filmmaker, cinema researcher, and author Arif Can Güngör. The conversation was moderated by Abdolhossein Laleh, who is active in both academia and theatre.
Kandemir opened the session by sharing how excited he was to visit Iran for the first time. He spoke about his background in filmmaking and the three films he hoped to explore during the session. What made the experience meaningful for him, he said, was how close Turkish and Iranian cinema feel to one another — not just in tone, but in their shared cinematic journey. “We know what a festival is, how it works, and how cinema grows,” he said. “It feels natural to talk about this shared evolution.”
He spoke openly about how Iranian cinema has influenced him: “Your culture has shaped me deeply. Turkish cinema has a minimalist spirit, one that pushes us toward simplicity. Combined with our shared cultural traits, this often leads us to a realist way of seeing life through the camera.”
Kandemir reflected on how the global festival landscape can encourage minimalist filmmakers to think more creatively, even when their numbers are small. He often advises his students to trust their storytelling instincts and look beyond famous faces, encouraging them instead to shape their own cinematic perspective. He also noted a strong desire for collaboration between Iranian and Turkish cinephiles. “We either make commercial films or festival films,” he said. “Without large budgets, many of us naturally gravitate toward festival-oriented cinema.”
Moderator Laleh added his own thoughts on how filmmakers with academic backgrounds are sometimes overlooked in Türkiye — something he believes Iran also experiences. For him, festivals such as this one create much-needed space for open conversation about cinema. He argued that cinema benefits from academic engagement, and academia benefits from staying close to cinema.
Reflecting on broader trends, Laleh said that many Turkish films in recent years seem shaped to meet the expectations of Western festivals, sometimes repeating familiar patterns. While this is not unique to Türkiye, it highlights how some filmmakers create films to satisfy institutions rather than pursue their own voice. “Cinema doesn’t have to serve politics,” he said. “It should tell our stories.”
Kandemir agreed, explaining that cinema becomes restrictive when it tries to prove or justify something. “Every filmmaker has to find their own cinematic language,” he said. When asked about political perspectives in Turkish cinema, he described an ongoing populist trend aimed at attracting audiences, noting that many films avoid taking clear political positions. Independent filmmakers, he added, often explore social realities but struggle to find platforms to show their work.
“Cinema is both an art and a universal language,” he said. “If I made a film just for Cannes, it wouldn’t mean anything. Young filmmakers need to understand that films aren’t made for festivals. And like many countries, Turkish cinema has become commercialized, sometimes shaped by market interests or soft propaganda.”
The conversation then shifted to Arif Can Güngör, a professor at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University. He emphasized how deeply Türkiye and Iran are connected — geographically, culturally, and historically. Persian poetry, he said, is a defining part of Iranian culture, and its influence runs through Iranian cinema. The bond between literature and cinema, he noted, is especially visible at this festival.
Güngör explained that cultural exchange between the two nations goes back centuries. Even as new cultural identities formed over the past 150 years, the shared influence persisted. He has recently researched these overlapping cultural layers, observing that while many people know the similarities, few understand their depth.
Laleh pointed out an interesting contrast: in Türkiye, more than 200 academic theses have been written about Iranian cinema, while in Iran only five theses focus on the cinema of Nuri Bilge Ceylan. He also referenced how Lalehzar cinema in Iran sparked intellectual cinematic movements in Türkiye that reacted against it.
When Laleh asked which parts of Iranian cinema are most studied, Güngör explained that Iranian cinema has carved out an independent creative identity recognized internationally. Since the 1980s, Western cinema has acknowledged Iran’s distinct cinematic language, especially through the work of Abbas Kiarostami. He recalled how, after the Revolution, many predicted the collapse of Iranian cinema — a prediction that proved wrong. With institutional support, Iranian cinema flourished, and by the 1990s achieved global recognition. Films like “Where Is the Friend’s House?” and “Through the Olive Trees”, he said, are early examples of this success.
Güngör also commented on the relationship between Turkish television and cinema. Many TV directors turn to cinema to express their artistic identity, but he warned that the two mediums function very differently. While television is geared toward entertainment, cinema aims for artistic expression — though in some cases, this crossover helps new talent emerge.
He noted the significant impact Iranian cinema has had on Turkish filmmaking, both in technique and aesthetics. This influence, rather than limiting Turkish filmmakers, has helped strengthen their confidence and broaden their creative range.
Addressing the depiction of social realities in Turkish cinema, he said that the issue is not ideological. Rather, filmmakers like Nuri Bilge Ceylan attempt to portray the natural behavior of people shaped by their environment. Türkiye, he added, is not a stable society; cinema naturally reflects this instability, though filmmakers face certain constraints.
He closed with a striking reflection: “Iran is more transparent than we are. Social realities appear more clearly in Iranian cinema. In Türkiye, reality is sometimes overshadowed by the filmmaker’s personal expression. Turkish cinema is still searching for a defined expressive system. Iranian cinema, on the other hand, is more inventive and reveals unspoken truths with remarkable intelligence.”
