Have you ever experienced wandering through a city you've never been to, within the context of a film, feeling as if you've walked those streets, descended those stairs, and felt its rhythm in your body? Cinema "shows" the city, but it doesn't stop there; it transforms it into a tangible, tactile, and livable experience. The screen becomes a map of an unknown city; the editing becomes a journey along that map; and the camera becomes a kind of "city guide." Since the dawn of cinema, the city has either been the subject of a story or has been woven into the very heart of the narrative as a "place." Urban elements appear in the very first images of the Lumière Brothers: crowds, streets, bodies leaving work, transportation networks, the daily routine of public spaces... Therefore, even when the city is constructed as a backdrop in cinema, it is often an active subject that sets the tempo, conflict, and emotion of the story.
This symposium opens up a discussion on the multifaceted relationship between the city and cinema. Sometimes the city appears as the "set" of the film; but more often it becomes an active component that determines the rhythm of the narrative, the movement possibilities of the characters, their encounters, and even their emotions. Streets, squares, staircases, passageways, bus stops, shop windows, vacant lots, construction sites, apartment corridors… Cinema brings these pieces together, making visible the daily life of the city, its pace, interruptions, and conflicts. From early cinema onwards, the city has been one of the most fundamental testing grounds for the camera. Dziga Vertov's 'Man with a Camera', in particular, radically reveals the way the camera is "adapted" to the city: the camera is integrated into the flow of the city, its rhythms of activity, its circulation, and the tempo of bodies; the city becomes the movement and the gaze itself. This line of thought constantly re-generates the question of how the city is constructed as an experience in cinema, across different periods and genres: from what perspective is the city seen? At what speed is it passed through? With what sounds is it heard? Which route is deemed “natural,” and which is designated “forbidden” or “impossible”?
Within this framework, the symposium proposes to collectively consider how everyday actions such as walking, waiting, getting lost, meeting, moving, seeking refuge, working, having fun, falling in love, and separating take shape in the city and are represented in cinema. How do migration and displacement experiences transform the urban landscape? Through what cinematic language are cultural encounters, class divisions, and transitions between neighborhoods depicted? How do ecological crises, infrastructure, urbanization, or the tension between "nature and city" produce a kind of urban vision on the silver screen? And of course, how do the limitations, as well as the opportunities, offered by cities become visible through cinema, especially for women and vulnerable groups?
In addition, narratives in recent Turkish cinema that revolve around themes of the countryside, alienation from the city, and leaving the city are among the symposium's axes of discussion in the context of spatial belonging, mobility, and displacement practices. States of withdrawal from, return to, or expulsion from the city, as well as those of moving towards it, can be considered as narrative forms that rethink the "center-periphery" relationship, the rhythm of daily life, and regimes of possibility. Similarly, the relationship that Yeşilçam cinema established with the city is open to evaluation, particularly through the question of how urban spaces, especially Istanbul, were represented at narrative, visual, and industrial levels, in conjunction with the social transformations of the period. In Yeşilçam, the city is not merely the place where the story takes place; it can be read as the carrier of a broad repertoire ranging from social climbing fantasies to migration and neighborhood culture, from modernization imaginaries to the spatial organization of the entertainment industry.
Furthermore, the symposium aims to address the city not merely as a "space" represented in films, but as a material and social practice in which cinema is itself constructed within the city. The relationship between cinemas, open-air screenings, and independent screening venues and the city; the impact of these spaces on neighborhood culture, public life, and daily encounters; and how the practice of film viewing produces urban circulation and a sense of belonging can be discussed under this heading. Similarly, the relationships between film crews, technical teams, actors involved in distribution and exhibition processes, and festivals operating in the field of cinema; and how production processes intersect with urban infrastructure, work regimes, and spatial inequalities are also within the scope of the symposium. Today, AI-assisted production methods are added to this: the reconstruction of urban space through AI risks weakening the concreteness and on-site witnessing of urban experience by substituting "having seen" for "being there." The symposium opens this transformation up for discussion as an issue with political and cultural consequences for the relationship established with the city.
Furthermore, we often see and witness the places we call the "back side" of the city, the places of work that we pass by in daily life without noticing, the invisible routes and rhythms; not through our own walks, but through the framing of cinema. Therefore, together we can multiply these questions.:
At the Kent Symposiums II: City and Cinema, we will explore these and similar questions. You may submit your paper abstracts via the relevant form Kent Symposiums II: City and Cinema (click to access) by the submission deadline of 15 March 2026. For information or in case of any issues, you can contact the committee via the committee email address kentsymposium@kent.edu.tr. The symposium will be held in a hybrid format (both online and in person) for participants joining from abroad. Organized in collaboration with Istanbul Kent University Center for Urban Studies (Kent-AR), the Department of Radio, Television and Cinema, and the School of Foreign Languages (YDYO), the official languages of the symposium are Turkish and English.
Suggestions for titles for presentation proposals.
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