One of the most important recent developments within film studies is the emergence of a new field conceptualized variously as accented cinema, intercultural cinema, or transnational cinema. According to the theory of accented cinema developed by Hamid Naficy as a means of evaluating the films of exilic, diasporic, and postcolonial filmmakers, accented films use similar formal strategies when dealing with themes like displacement, exile, journeying, home, homelessness, national identity, belonging, and personal and collective memory, while generally taking an oppositional stance in relation to dominant cinema. This article analyses Erol Mintaş’s feature debut, Klama Dayika Min (Song of My Mother, 2014), a story of displacement, through the lens of Hamid Naficy’s theory of accented cinema. Mintaş’s film focuses on a mother and son who, twenty years after their forced migration from Doğubeyazıt to Istanbul in the 1990s, have once again been driven from their home due to urban transformation, and thus, in a sense, are doubly exiled. This article examines the ways in which homeland and life in exile are represented in the film as well as the formal strategies used in this representation with the aim of revealing the thematic and formal similarities Song of My Mother shares with accented films. Drawing upon theories on nostalgia, memory, collective memory, and counter-memory as well as Laura Marks’s views on intercultural cinema, this article analyzes the key role played in the film by two themes central to accented cinema—namely, nostalgia and memory—with a view to identifying the ideological position of the film with respect to dominant culture. Thus, this article shows that Song of My Mother, which warns against cultural amnesia and calls for the preservation of Kurdish collective identity, can be read as an example of accented cinema that stands in opposition to mainstream culture.
Primary Language | Turkish |
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Journal Section | Features |
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Publication Date | April 25, 2022 |
Published in Issue | Year 2022 |
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