Transition to Adulthood in the New Turkish Cinema: Gender, Power and Game in Sivas and Hayat Var films

Childhood is a historically constructed concept. It has been used in different meanings throughout the history. The image of childhood in cinema also appears in different forms at different times. The childhood image of Turkish cinema is also transforming in time. Childhood appeared as an innocent figure in the cinema before 1980, but later it became a crisis-based figure. One of the different themes of childhood in post-2000 Turkish cinema is gender. In this study, the examples of Sivas and Hayat Var movies will tried to be analysed focusing on how the transition period of boys and girls to adolescence appears in cinema. The main theoretical framework of the work will be conducted through Connell’s concept of “hegemonic masculinity” and Bourdieu’s “masculinity habit”. While the dog fighting game in the Sivas film will be analysed together with Bourdieu’s concept of homo-social male communities and Huizinga’s game; femininity in Hayat Var will be evaluated in terms of the relationship with the femininity and sound fiction of the hegemonic masculinity. Thus, the transition to masculinity and womanhood will be evaluated through the perspectives of the directors who have different techniques in cinema