“Found Objectionable”

Abstract

I explore how film censorship has increasingly shaped film production and circulation at film festivals, public screenings, and theatrical releases in post‐2000 Turkey. I argue that film censorship in Turkey now works through two levels. First, through direct intervention, whereby state institutions continue to censor film production. Although the renaming of control commissions from previous decades via the 2004 “Cinema Law” creates the illusion that censorship boards have been abolished, fieldwork data proves otherwise. Secondly, state institutions designate various non‐state actors as proxies of the state and grant them well‐calculated power to employ on their behalf when necessary. I draw upon fieldwork data and case studies to analyze how the political climate in Turkey has suppressed cultural production, freedom of expression, and political resistance to the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government both through bans on artistic expression and processes of delegitimization, targeting, threats, and violence.