The 60th Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival made headlines this year by excluding the documentary Kanun Hükmü, which had applied to compete in the National Documentary Film category, from the competition selection on the grounds that the judicial process was ongoing. Then it was included again and the festival was completely canceled. When you think about this whole process, how do you evaluate the situation?
As we stated in our statement as Altyazı Cinema Association, the festival management invented an excuse for censorship. They announced that they removed the movie on a ground that has no legal basis. As we also stated in the statement, the "crime of attempting to influence fair trial", which was cited as a justification for the censorship, applies to verbal or written statements made with specific intent to influence prosecutors, judges, courts, experts or witnesses.
It is a violation of the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of expression to claim that screening documentaries, which are a form of cinematic expression, at festivals would lead to such a crime. Already in the following week, the documentary Kanun Hükmü was withdrawn from the program due to the reaction of the juries and the film community. Then came the press release in which the Ministry of Culture and Tourism announced that it was withdrawing its support and accused the festival of "terrorist propaganda". Subsequently, pro-government media outlets and trolls attacked the festival management with threats and the documentary was again removed from the program. Finally, the Mayor of Antalya Metropolitan Municipality announced that he had canceled the festival and dismissed the festival management. This whole horrible process has already clearly shown us the motives behind the censorship and by whom.
If only the festival management had had the courage to say in its first statement that they were under pressure from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism to remove the film from the program on the grounds of "terrorist propaganda" and that the film had nothing to do with these accusations. We probably wouldn't be in a worse position than we are now: The festival was canceled, the festival management was fired, the film (and, in a way, everyone who opposed the censorship of the film) was criminalized by government officials and pro-government media and trolls. The most important achievement we have is that the juries and the film community quickly and with one voice said that they will not be where censorship reigns, and the censoring power made itself clear.
Censorship always persists in such festivals
Antalya Film Festival, one of the most prestigious film festivals in Turkey, is known for sometimes overcoming censorship and even rewarding censored films, and sometimes, as in this year's case, for not screening films at the festival. Where does this fluctuating attitude stem from?
In fact, it is not exactly a fluctuating attitude. Censorship is always carried out secretly in municipally organized festivals like Altın Portakal, supported by the Ministry of Culture. Especially after 2014 (the year the censorship of Yeryüzü Aşkın Yüzü... took place in Antalya), it has intensified. The change of municipalities perhaps only has an impact on what will be censored. Censorship is always present in such festivals.
For example, in Antalya, the documentary competition and the national competition were abolished during the years when the municipality was under AKP rule (2014-2019). This is censorship in itself, perhaps even greater censorship than the banning of individual films. In other words, censorship, which became systematic in these years, lost its visibility and did not become an agenda. This is the main reason why there seems to be a fluctuation. When the municipality switched to CHP in 2019, the film industry had two demands. The first was for the festival to be autonomous from the municipality, and the second was for the festival to confront the 2014 censorship and screen the films that could not be screened that year. Unfortunately, since the new festival management did not embrace these two demands with the support of filmmakers, the festival was subjected to interventions by both the municipality and the ministries. As a result, with the open intervention of the ministry, we faced a case of censorship that went beyond what happened in 2014.
The movie industry must also build stronger alliances against a multi-channel crackdown
For a long time, festivals in Turkey have been associated with censorship. The Golden Orange Film Festival often witnesses protests by both artists and directors. How do you evaluate this and what would you like to say about the fight against censorship?
In the past years, there has been no grounds for trust between festival directors and filmmakers to resist censorship and censorship mechanisms together. If such a ground had been established, we could be talking about other processes and other struggles.
We are far from the times when censorship was only done by the state, 40-odd years have passed. Now, capital, foundations, municipalities are also involved, as well as festival directors who are said to be independent but are not. In the case of "Kanun Hükmü", even ministries other than the Ministry of Culture were involved. The Ministry of Justice was able to criminalize the screening of "Kanun Hükmü", a film for which there was no banning order, on the contrary, the Constitutional Court, following an individual application made by the director, deemed the denial of permission to shoot the documentary a violation of freedom of expression, in other words, it opposed the prevention of its production. It must be realized that we are now in a new and much more dangerous dynamic.
On the one hand, we are in a process where not only the state but also unofficial, private, so-called autonomous structures are involved in the censorship mechanism, and on the other hand, filmmakers can be criminalized and targeted directly by the state. Against such a multi-channel oppression, the film industry must build stronger alliances within itself. It should be able to establish autonomous structures that do not work with the bureaucracy.
In addition, the movie industry itself should stop seeing the field of independent-oppositional-political documentaries as a source of threat. These films are being produced and will continue to be produced, despite all kinds of pressure. In order not to see these films only as a source of crisis, the film industry needs to organize itself without waiting for crises to occur and create permanent structures to resist censorship. Otherwise, we will be dealing with crisis management every time.
There should be a "handbook" for festival management that focuses on protecting freedom of expression to the fullest
How do you evaluate the imposition of censorship not through the usual means of the government, but through individuals from the film industry, and actors within the sector taking on this role themselves?
There should be a "handbook" for festival directors to refer back to when they are subjected to censorship pressure or when they see self-censorship processes in action, focusing on protecting freedom of expression to the fullest. But whenever this happens, instead of adhering to the guidelines, festival directors place themselves between the municipality, government agencies and filmmakers. They play the role of "facilitators" looking for answers to the question "How can we handle this before the crisis erupts, how can we save the situation?" Instead of defending principles, they follow the question "how can we get out of this without messing it up?". However, we would like to see festival directors who have served film culture for years and are competent in this field on the side of filmmakers, on the side of freedom of expression, which filmmakers have repeatedly shown the will to defend. If they want to resist censorship, they need to know that filmmakers and wider film culture actors are on their side.
Filmmakers in Turkey have a serious and historic resistance against censorship. It is not possible for festival directors to be unaware of this; filmmakers are not a community that cannot understand the pressures they are subjected to. However, no one can expect filmmakers to accept the violation of freedom of expression and censorship at a point where festival managements cannot resist the pressures. Trying to find legally invalid excuses for this is making fun of everyone's minds.
As Altyazı Cinema Association, we suggest that when the pressure becomes unbearable, they should disclose it transparently and not sign on to censorship. Let whoever wants to censor the censorship sign it. It is not possible to understand why Ahmet Boyacıoğlu signed that statement that could almost create a new censorship mechanism.
One of our demands as Altyazı Cinema Association was that they withdraw this justification. But what happened was that the accusation of "terrorist propaganda", which is already used in Turkey to restrict not only freedom of expression, but also freedom of assembly, demonstration and march, was dumped on the festival by the government and pro-government media channels and trolls. Neither the festival directors nor the municipality could come up with a word against this, nor did they dare to take the filmmakers with them and realize the program they had announced.
*1977 Great Censorship March I Source: Sendika.org
There is no other way to act together against all kinds of rights violations
Unfortunately, Turkey's history of censorship, which had an institutional identity until 2004, did not disappear with the abolition of the Censorship Board. Is there an internalization of censorship here? How can we read this?
Yes, of course there is internalization, but the real problem is the lack of unity in the struggle against censorship. There are no large-scale collaborations like the great censorship march of 1977. Film festivals, even those supported by the ministry, do not act together with filmmakers, they work with bureaucrats.
In the years that Siyah Bant has been working on censorship and festivals, we have clearly seen this: Especially ministry-supported festivals and municipal festivals prefer to negotiate with censorship. For example, the ministry demands the exclusion of a film behind closed doors, saying that if you don't exclude it, I will cut half of the budget, the festival tries to solve this problem through bargaining without making it public, for example, instead of including the film in the competition, it offers a special screening to the ministry, etc. It claims that this bargaining approach, which recognizes censorship, is in the name of culture and art. He thinks that without me, this field would be lost, he puts himself in a separate place from the power, etc. However, he 1-recognizes censorship, 2-institutionalizes it, 3-prevents it from becoming public. Therefore, there is an internalization, yes, but this is more of an internalization experienced as a result of the loss of power of publicness in the neoliberal period, that is, an understanding of 'solving it from within'.
The state of taking censorship for granted exists at the institutional level rather than the audience and filmmakers, and it feeds from there. Of course, this situation also affects the audience and the filmmakers, pacifying them. However, the recent process in Antalya showed that filmmakers have the ability to act faster to say a clear no to censorship after the 2014 experience.
At a time when restrictive policies in the field of culture and arts are crossing new thresholds and increasing their impact, there is no other way but for filmmakers to act together against all kinds of rights violations and to further develop their solidarity practices.