Abstract:

The relationship between cinema and sports traces back to the early years of cinema. The studies dealing with this relationship and sports films are of great importance in literature as regards. As for the sports in Turkish cinema, there are not inclusive and satisfying research papers examining the issue. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the place and importance of sports in Turkish cinema. To this end, the document analysis procedure which is a form of qualitative research was used for the study. Within this scope, it has been investigated that how many sports themed films there are in Turkey; and in what context they include the sports themes; and to what extent the academics of Turkey have interests in them. As a result, 41 sports themed films were identified and most of them include football, wrestling, and martial arts. One of the attention-grabbing facts about the films is that as opposed to the many foreign films, they have not been used as a tool for propaganda and they do not include successes of Turkey in sports. Moreover, the numbers and the quality of the films indicate that sports and sports themed films are not of great importance in Turkish cinema. Besides, the academic studies dealing with the issue are only a few. In conclusion, it is recommended that the sports themed films in Turkey be examined in terms of many aspects, which will contribute to the social studies in sports sciences and will pave the way for new studies in Turkey.

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