Framing Contemporary Turkish Cinema at Cannes: A Comparative Analysis of the Paratextual Materials of Burning Days (2022) and About Dry Grasses (2023)
Summary
This thesis researches how contemporary Turkish cinema is framed at international film festival settings like the Cannes Film Festival by analyzing the paratextual materials of two recent Turkish films that have premiered at the festival, Burning Days (2022) by Emin Alper and About Dry Grasses (2023) by Nuri Bilge Ceylan. Instead of concentrating on the films themselves, the thesis examines how press kits and official festival blurbs present them, revealing how these paratexts shape narratives around national cinema, auteurship, and political engagement. Grounded in film festival studies and national cinema discourse, the thesis adopts a critical discourse analysis method to examine how these materials mediate cultural meaning and influence global reception. The findings reveal a mutually constitutive relationship between production companies and festival institutions, where paratexts are strategically crafted to align with Cannes’ curatorial values while also shaping international perceptions of Turkish cinema. By comparing the linguistic and discursive patterns in the materials of the two case studies, the thesis argues that festivals don’t merely showcase national cinema, they co-author it. In doing so, the thesis contributes to broader discussions on canon formation, cultural gatekeeping, and the politics of representation within the global film festival circuit.