Drakula comes to İstanbul: a brief history of Turkish fantastic cinema

Abstract

This article aims to recount a brief history of Turkish fantastic cinema. Although fantastic themes have been a part of world cinemas almost since the beginning of cinema itself, the first examples of Turkish fantastic cinema appear much later in the 1950s. Most of the Turkish fantastic movies made between the 1950s and the 1980s are Hollywood and European film adaptations or domestic characters dealing with Western concepts such as space travel. Nevertheless, these characters and themes undergo significant "nationalization" processes, where iconic characters of the world cinemas are re-created to fit into a very particular and different cultural context, becoming a part of the Turkish cinema and the Turkish culture. After exploring the earliest examples of Turkish fantastic cinema, a brief explanation of the historical fantasy period, the masked heroes period, and the transition between the space age and galaxy age period is provided in chronological order, along with a detailed recount of the most exemplary films of each period in an attempt try and reach an understanding of how these seemingly foreign concepts and characters became an undeniable part of Turkish film culture and history. The article is concluded with projections about the future of Turkish fantastic cinema.