Economic Infrastructure of Independent Cinema Works, Distribution Opportunities and Preferences of Content

Abstract

Independent cinema is a concept used for films that are taken apart from studio system, with small budgets and outside the narrative strategies of mainstream cinema. Because of its economic organization, it is possible to read independent cinema which stands against classical narrative cinema as a cultural struggle against hegemony in terms of its approach to cinema.  In this respect, it is possible to give the title of independent era to the works that give importance to artistic narrative and pioneer the works of cinema to be produced in the future and which are alternative to accepted narrative structures. In this study, independent cinema will be explained with its history; how it is organized economically and what opportunities it has in distribution. In addition, how independent cinema differs from mainstream cinema in terms of content and shooting preferences will be examined. Also, Turkey has won many awards and the independent filmmaking is important in terms of providing visual inspection. Descriptive research method is adopted as the method of the study. In this study, sample Turkish films will be subjected to content analysis in the context of Peter Wollen's categorization, where he distinguishes between mainstream and independent cinema. The films of Semih Kaplanoğlu, Yeşim Ustaoğlu, Nuri Bilge Ceylan and Zeki Demirkubuz, which are accepted by the authorities to lead the Turkish cinema after 1990, are selected as samples. As samples, aforementioned director’s movies named Honey, Waiting for the Clouds, Clouds of May and The Third Page is selected. The main hypothesis of this study is that independent Turkish cinema has competence to matching the world’s criterias. The nature of American and Turkish cinema movements do not correspond to different completely. They are both shooted with view of perspective and under the mainsteam spotlight.