From social realism and socialist cinema, to the Turkish 'new wave' and the nascent Kurdish cinema, this dissertation traces the mutual implication of the production of Turkish national space and of Doğu ("The East") as cinematic space. Doğu emerged as part of a discursive formation within the Turkish state's address to eastern Turkey; it entered national cinema as a result of the journey of social realism to the region in the aftermath of the military coup in 1960, which allowed for the bourgeoning of the socialist public sphere and enabled filmmakers to cinematically reflect on the region. However, the state's renewed security-oriented interests, triggered by the resurgent Kurdish movement within both Turkey and Iraq, permeated the region and enforced limits on the representation of Doğu as a new cinematic space. Although in its cinematic incarnation 'Doğu' was hardly a perpetuation of state ideology, a cartographic anxiety--informed by the desire for spatial modernization--shaped the politico-aesthetic parameters of the region's cinematic presence. In recent years, the representation of the region within the nascent Kurdish cinema can be understood as a deconstructive turn problematizing the foundation of Turkish national space and the cinematic Doğu. / text

Esta tese se propõe a pensar sobre o lugar da infância no cinema curdo de Bahman Ghobadi e tem como objeto de estudo os filmes Life in fog (Zendegi da Meh, 1999), A Time for Drunken Horses (Zamani barayé masti asbha, 2000), Turtles can Fly (Lakposhtha parvaz mikonand, 2004), Life on the Border (2015) e A Flag Without a Country (2015). Minha hipótese é que em seus filmes o lugar que a criança ocupa é de agência, pois as crianças deixam de ser seres passivos, para se tornarem agentes sociais. Isso transparece tanto nos personagens construídos quanto em suas funções durante a realização dos filmes, quando atuam também enquanto coautoras, pois o método de direção de Bahman Ghobadi dialoga com as etnoficções criadas por Jean Rouch, que conta com a colaboração dos sujeitos filmados. A opção de Ghobadi por fugir das normas convencionais de se fazer cinema, além de ser uma opção estética, é também política, e efetiva-se como um cinema de resistência, que se assume enquanto um cinema curdo. Para entender quais infâncias Ghobadi aborda e o que significa para essas crianças serem curdas, procuro descobrir os contextos nos quais elas estão inseridas. Realizo isso através de um panorama do cinema curdo e seu diálogo com a sociedade, que investiga os temas que esse cinema utiliza, as guerras que essas crianças enfrentam, o uso do idioma, a censura e a relação com os países hospedeiros. / My hypothesis is that in Ghobadis movies children are invested with agency, for they are not passive beings, but social agents. This surfaces in the constructed characters as well as in their engagement as coauthors of the films, because Bahman Ghobadis directing method dialogues with Jean Rouchs ethnofictions, both relying upon the collaboration of the subjects on screen. Ghobadis choice to skip the conventional movie making rules is more than an aesthetical one, it is also a political one, accomplishing a cinema of resistance, claiming itself to be a Kurdish Cinema. To understand witch childhoods are approached by Ghobadi and what does it means to those children to be Kurdish, I investigate the context they dwell. This investigation is carried out by presenting a Kurdish Cinema panorama and its dialogue with the society, investigating the themes presented by this cinema, the wars those children face, the uses of language, the censorship and the relation with the host countries.

Esta tese se propõe a pensar sobre o lugar da infância no cinema curdo de Bahman Ghobadi e tem como objeto de estudo os filmes Life in fog (Zendegi da Meh, 1999), A Time for Drunken Horses (Zamani barayé masti asbha, 2000), Turtles can Fly (Lakposhtha parvaz mikonand, 2004), Life on the Border (2015) e A Flag Without a Country (2015). Minha hipótese é que em seus filmes o lugar que a criança ocupa é de agência, pois as crianças deixam de ser seres passivos, para se tornarem agentes sociais. Isso transparece tanto nos personagens construídos quanto em suas funções durante a realização dos filmes, quando atuam também enquanto coautoras, pois o método de direção de Bahman Ghobadi dialoga com as etnoficções criadas por Jean Rouch, que conta com a colaboração dos sujeitos filmados. A opção de Ghobadi por fugir das normas convencionais de se fazer cinema, além de ser uma opção estética, é também política, e efetiva-se como um cinema de resistência, que se assume enquanto um cinema curdo. Para entender quais infâncias Ghobadi aborda e o que significa para essas crianças serem curdas, procuro descobrir os contextos nos quais elas estão inseridas. Realizo isso através de um panorama do cinema curdo e seu diálogo com a sociedade, que investiga os temas que esse cinema utiliza, as guerras que essas crianças enfrentam, o uso do idioma, a censura e a relação com os países hospedeiros. / My hypothesis is that in Ghobadis movies children are invested with agency, for they are not passive beings, but social agents. This surfaces in the constructed characters as well as in their engagement as coauthors of the films, because Bahman Ghobadis directing method dialogues with Jean Rouchs ethnofictions, both relying upon the collaboration of the subjects on screen. Ghobadis choice to skip the conventional movie making rules is more than an aesthetical one, it is also a political one, accomplishing a cinema of resistance, claiming itself to be a Kurdish Cinema. To understand witch childhoods are approached by Ghobadi and what does it means to those children to be Kurdish, I investigate the context they dwell. This investigation is carried out by presenting a Kurdish Cinema panorama and its dialogue with the society, investigating the themes presented by this cinema, the wars those children face, the uses of language, the censorship and the relation with the host countries.

This thesis examines Iranian-Kurdish filmmaker, Bahman Ghobadi’s authorial strategies and cinematic aesthetics through the theoretical and methodological lens of hybridity. According to Homi Bhabha, hybridity can be understood as a “third space,” in which cultural meanings resist binary either/or logic, and are instead negotiated through a logic that is neither one, nor the other. Thus, Bhabha’s concept of hybridity as a “third space” provides a fruitful framework to analyze Ghobadi’s authorship and cinematic style. By analyzing Ghobadi’s neo-realist treatment of Kurdistan’s cultural and physical landscape and hybrid cinematic aesthetics in his first two features, A Time for Drunken Horses (2000) and Turtles Can Fly (2004), this research calls attention to intercultural processes that generate cultural meaning through indexical and material as opposed to symbolic registers. In addition, this thesis applies Hamid Naficy’s concept of “shifters” to examine how Ghobadi’s hybrid authorial strategies and narrative reflexivity garners international audiences in his two latest features, Half Moon (2006) and No One Knows about Persian Cats (2009). This project also examines how Ghobadi’s use of a digital camera and employment of digital cinematic techniques to capture Iran’s underground rock music culture in No One Knows about Persian Cats, testifies to the authenticity of this cultural space while simultaneously structuring the film as a global vehicle for these Iranian musicians’ performances. Ultimately, Ghobadi’s hybrid authorial strategies and cinematic aesthetics function as a means to enunciate and globally circulate diverse Kurdish and Iranian cultural identities. In doing so, this thesis illuminates hybrid modes of cultural production and hybrid cultural subjectivities that have emerged in the contemporary globalized landscape. / text

Dans les quatre pays dominant le Kurdistan, (Turquie, Iran, Irak et Syrie), la question kurde se traduit avant tout sous forme de visibilité/ invisibilité, autour de la question de la reconnaissance des Kurdes en tant que Nation déniée. Notamment en Turquie, le premier des pays à avoir imposé aux Kurdes son modèle d'Etat-Nation, cette question renvoie aux politiques négationnistes étatiques menées contre la culture et l'identité kurdes, considérées dès 1924, comme des obstacles au processus de création d'une identité nationale turque. Dans ce rapport conflictuel entre le nationalisme turc et le nationalisme kurde, également fruit d'une mémorisation traumatique et d'une longue histoire de résistance kurde dans chaque partie du Kurdistan, l'imaginaire des Kurdes renvoie а une dimension historique devenue spontanément une référence essentielle du traitement cinématographique de la « kurdicité », sous forme d’interaction construite par les Kurdes eux-mêmes ou créée par leurs adversaires politiques.Notre thèse s'efforce de montrer cette influence durable du nationalisme sur le traitement cinématographique de la « kurdicité », principalement dans le cinéma turc traitant les Kurdes sans les designer en tant que Kurdes, puis dans le cinéma kurde au service de la « cause kurde » après les années 1990. / In the four countries dominating Kurdistan (Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria) the Kurdish question translates first and foremost under the concept of visibility/invisibility, around the problem of the recognition of the Kurds as a denied nation. This is especially apparent in the case of Turkey, the first of the countries which imposed its own nation-state on the Kurds : this question is associated with the negationist state policies on Kurdish culture and identity,which, since 1924, have been considered as obstacles on the path to the creation of a nationalTurkish identity. In this conflictual relation between Kurdish and Turkish nationalisms – the fruit, among others, of a traumatic memory and a long history of Kurdish resistance inrespective sections of Kurdistan – the imagery of the Kurds refers to a historical dimensionwhich has spontaneously become an essential reference of cinematographic treatment of« Kurdishness » under the form of interactions constructed by themselves or by their own political opponents. The present thesis aims at describing that permanent influence of nationalism on the cinematographic treatment of « Kurdishness » in the Turkish cinema which principally treats the Kurds without designating them as Kurds, then in the Kurdish cinema in the service of « Kurdish cause » following the 1990s.