A Conversation with Dr. Enis Dinç on the Audiovisual Memory of the Early Republic

For the fifth gathering of Hafıza Konuşmaları—a series designed around publications in its library and the selections from Julien Bryan’s New Turkey documentaries held in its archive—Kundura Memory Archive and Research welcomes film historian and academic Dr. Enis Dinç.

The conversation with Enis Dinç, centered on his book Atatürk on Screen: Documentary Film and the Making of a Leader, will focus on the role documentary cinema played in the visual representation of Atatürk and the new Türkiye during the early Republican period. It will open up for discussion how cinema was used not merely as a recording tool, but as a powerful medium through which narratives of modernization, representation, leadership and nation-building were put into circulation.

At this gathering, accompanied by film footage from the Kundura Memory archive, Enis Dinç will examine the films at the heart of his research within their historical, visual and political contexts, opening up space for an archival reading of the early Republican period. Shaped by a film screening, a conversation and questions from participants, the program invites us to think together through archival materials.

About Dr. Enis Dinç

Dr. Enis Dinç is a film historian and academic at Filmuniversität Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF. He has been a visiting researcher at Princeton University and conducted research as an academic member of the Cinepoetics research group at Freie Universität Berlin. The author of Atatürk on Screen: Documentary Film and the Making of a Leader, Dinç works on Ottoman and Turkish film history, visual culture and Turkish-German film relations.

In our panel series “Memory Talks IV,” to be held at Kundura Hafıza Archive and Research on Saturday, October 25, 2025, we will discuss archives and libraries with Hayri Fehmi Yılmaz, Begüm Başoğlu Öner and Dilek Yıldız Karakaş, in conjunction with the opening of the Kundura Hafıza Archive and Research Center.

Located in the former daycare building of the Sümerbank Beykoz Deri ve Kundura Fabrikası (Beykoz Leather and Shoe Factory), the Center opens to researchers its comprehensive collection, comprising the Sümerbank, Etibank, Sac Ambarı and Oral History archives, along with a specialized library focusing on Ottoman and Republican-era industrial history, labor studies, and industrial and cultural heritage, with a particular emphasis on the Sümerbank Beykoz Deri ve Kundura Fabrikası. The Research Center will welcome visitors by appointment.

In our panel series “Memory Talks III,” to be held at Kundura Hafıza Archive and Research on Saturday, October 26, 2024, we will discuss Industrial Heritage and the Paper Industry from the Ottoman Empire to the Republic in two separate sessions with Dr. Gülsün Tanyeli, Dr. Mehmet Saner, Ekin Sarıca, Prof. Dr. Burak Asıliskender, Dr. Hakan Koçak, Prof. Dr. Nedret Kuran, Dr. Mehmet Sarıoğlu and Salim Saraç.