Fragments from the Past
The idea to explore the culture of cinema going amongst London’s
Turkish speakers grew out of a European Union sponsored project,
Mediterranean Voices: Oral History and Cultural Practice in
Mediterranean Cities.
The cinema, as a cultural institution, a link with home, and a
place to meet, has played an important role in adapting to life in
London. These interviews, caught on film by Vedide Kaymak and
Hakan Demiralay, capture the range of emotions and experiences
associated with the cinema.
The portrait photographs by Barbara and Zafer Baran originally
accompanied the first screening of Vedide Kaymak and Hakan
Demiralay’s film Fragments from the Past at the opening of the
annual London Turkish Film Festival at the Rio Cinema, Dalston,
in December 2004. The portraits are a beautiful rendition of the
‘home away from home’ established by the individuals who relate
their experiences in the film. Award-winning film maker Ümit Ünal’s
introduction to this edited collection of the original interviews
situates these personal accounts in the context of the development
of Turkish cinema, which has now acquired the status of a transnational
genre, with an international reputation. The selection of film
posters from the 1960s and 1970s included here gives a flavour
of the time.