Introduction

This chapter introduces the main concern of the book: The presence and absence of women as images and as image-makers in the cinemas of Iran and Turkey, two predominantly Muslim, majority non-Arab countries in the Middle East that share several historical and cultural traits despite differences in religious practices, local customs, dominant languages and political regimes. The author compares the modern histories of the two neighbouring countries and traces similarities (‘Kemalism and Pahlavism’ including the dichotomies), particularly in the perception and adaption of Western modernity, one of the crucial issues of nation-building in both countries and cinema representing Western modernity. The visibility of women as images and decades later as image-makers is charted chronologically and critically with emphasis on the representation of the woman’s body through both secular and Islamic regimes as a site for religious and political contestation of conflicting ideologies in both commercial cinema and independent art house fare. Cinema beyond the nation state boundaries, spectatorship in gendered practices, the ‘critical gaze’ of the state during various political regimes and the masculine hegemony prevalent in the film industries including film criticism and scholarship are integral to this chapter, so are the new trends in film production. Challenges and obstacle to women’s positive representation on screen and active involvement in the industry are underscored through research and personal interviews. The contemporary voyage of the cinemas of Iran and Turkey to the West is charted through personal experiences of these two cinemas that have carved a global niche in the last 30 or more years.