Turkish cinema
| Cinema of Turkey | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| No. of screens | 2,093 (2012) |
| • Per capita | 3.0 per 100,000 (2011) |
| Main distributors |
United International Pictures 34.8% Warner Bros. 21.9% Tiglon 18.9% |
| Produced feature films (2012) | |
| Total | 61 |
| Number of admissions (2012) | |
| Total | 43,935,763 |
| • Per capita | 0.8 (2016) |
| National films | 20,487,220 (47.0%) |
| Gross box office (2012) | |
| Total | $234 million |
| National films | $109 million (46.6%) |
Yeşilçam (literally means The Green Pine in Turkish language) (Turkish pronunciation: [ˈje.ʃil.t͡ʃɑm]) is the sobriquet that refers to the Turkish film art and industry. It is an important part of Turkish culture, and has flourished over the years, delivering entertainment to audiences in Turkey, expatriates across Europe, and more recently prospering in the Arab world and in rare cases, the United States. The first movie exhibited in the Ottoman Empire was the Lumiere Brothers' 1895 film, L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat, which was shown in Istanbul in 1896. The first Turkish-made film was a documentary entitled Ayastefanos'taki Rus Abidesinin Yıkılışı (Demolition of the Russian Monument at San Stefano), directed by Fuat Uzkınay and completed in 1914. The first narrative film, Sedat Simavi's The Spy, was released in 1917. Turkey's first sound film was shown in 1931.
In terms of film production, Turkey shared the same fate with many of the national cinemas of the 20th century. Film production wasn't continuous until around the 1950s and the film market in general was run by a few major import companies that struggled for domination in the most population-dense and profitable cities such as Istanbul and İzmir. Film theatres rarely ever screened any locally produced films and the majority of the programs consisted of films of the stronger western film industries, especially those of the United States, France, Italy and Germany. Attempts at film production came primarily from multinational studios, which could rely on their comprehensive distribution networks together with their own theatre chains, thus guaranteeing them a return on their investment. Between the years 1896–1945, the number of locally produced films did not even reach 50 films in total, equal to less than a single year's annual film production in the 1950s and 1960s. Domestically produced films constituted only a small fraction of the total number of films screened in Turkey prior to the 1950s.
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