Exhibitor’s Cut: Travelling Cinema and Experiences of Cinemagoing in Taurus Highland Villages during 1960-1980

Based on the New Cinema History approach, this article focuses on the cinemagoing experiences in the Taurus highland villages from 1960 to 1980 in Turkey. No previous study has investigated cinemagoing experience in rural Turkey. We explore who participated in the screenings and what the experiences of audience members were, in which places (fixed or ambulant) and under what circumstance s the film screenings took place, who the exhibitors were, and how procurement, distribution and exhibition mechanisms worked. We employed an ethnographic design and collected testimonies through oral history with villagers and also with travelling exhibitors and cinema operators. Our findings challenge a series of antiquated arguments on Turkish cinema history by reflecting upon grounded daily experiences in a often-ignored locality. These findings include issues such as cinema exhibition operated independently from the city, mobility and temporality of cinemagoing experience, performative audience, and open cinema spaces.