Short Films

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Turkish Classics Revisited

TEN WOMEN
ON KADIN

• Director: Şerif Gören
• TURKEY / 1987 / DCP / Colour / 98’ / Turkish; English s.t.

• Screenplay: Hüseyin Kuzu
• Director of Photography: Erdal Kahraman
• Editing: Mustafa Kul
• Music: Atilla Van
• Cast: Türkan Şoray, Erdal Özyağcılar, Songül Ülkü, Bilal İnci, Hale Akınlı, Asuman Arsan, Gülsen Tuncer, Yavuzer Çetinkaya
• Producer: Kadir Turgut, Ferit Turgut
• Production Co.: Uzman Film
• World Sales: Uzman Film

▪ Şerif Gören, one of the true originals of Turkish cinema… A rare filmmaker who formed his cinematic language without falling back on the established and repetitive conventions of box-office filmmaking… Throughout his career Gören, who adapted the screenplay by Yılmaz Güney as the director of the Palm d’or-winning Yol (1981), focused on the breaking points of daily life and built his cinematic language through the discourse of the oppressed. However, instead of resorting to the populist side of politics he took shelter in the “mundane” aspect of life and the “strength” of the image. By aiming to rework the narrative through cinematic tools and without leaning solely on the literary side of the stories of situations, interruptions, identities, and conditions that leave a mark in the collective memory of groups, he created his own style. Therefore today, when we mention Şerif Gören, we point to a cinematic style, hence an eponymous power of interpretation. 

Şerif Gören started his directing career with Endişe (1974), which won the Best Film and Best Director awards at the 12th Antalya Film Festival and earned a Best Screenwriter Award for Yılmaz Güney, Gören’s long-time collaborator. The beginning of their artistic partnership in 1966 can be seen as a turning point for the upand-coming director. His notable films from his early career include Deprem (1976), Almanya Acı Vatan (1979), Tomruk (1982), Kurbağalar and Yılanların Öcü / Revenge of the Snakes (1985), Sen Türkülerini Söyle (1986), and 1987’s Ten Women. 

Originally conceived as a film made up of 10 short films, Ten Women features 9 short films starring Türkan Şoray playing women from different socio-economic backgrounds. During the unreliable atmosphere of ’80s post-coup Turkey, films that could be considered as reflections of the strengthening of women’s movement and hotly discussed social gender economics at the time found a place in Turkish cinema. With its meticulous and calculated dramaturgy, Ten Women occupies a special place in Gören’s filmography. Featuring no indirect narrative, nine different circumstances faced by nine different women result in almost the same conclusion: portraits of women featuring all the negative connotations of womanhood, which is always at fault in the eyes of society, defined by male powers. These nine stories are built around a dramatic narrative based on female body subjected to violence and titled Bride, Journalist, Gypsy, Sea, Mother-Daughter, Prostitute, Prize, Feminist, and Peasant. 

These nine women, represented by an exceptional performance from Türkan Şoray, are revealed through the eyes of the director who refrains from stereotyping. By avoiding any discourse that contains partiality he makes room for the viewer to assess the equability of the situation. The story of the 10th woman is the story of the viewer. 

This film was a Meetings on the Bridge participant.