Turkey’s Culture Ministry aims to increase the number of cinema viewers with discount tickets.

Ankara / NationalTurk – The Turkish Culture and Tourism Ministry plans to collaborate with the fast developing Turkish cinema industry to discount movie tickets in order to increase the number of viewers of Turkish films.

Cinema General Director Cem Erkul stated cinema audiences were limited to two age groups in Turkey: people between the ages of 7 and 16, and 16 and 45.

Erkul announced they especially wanted people over the age of 45 to go to cinema, adding, “We are searching to make a price different in different film sessions. We also have talks with movie theater operators. They share the same idea.”

Turkish Film Industry : The good, the bad and the ugly

The goal was to increase the number of Turkish productions to 100 annually, he said. “It should be a routine. We want to reach this goal by the end of 2013,” he added.

Erkul also said they planned to increase the occupancy rate in movie theaters. “The occupancy rate in movie theaters is 10.2 % right now. Our aim lies at 25 %.”

State support was not enough to realize this achievement, he explained, and clarified the ministry’s “road map” to raise the number of filmgoers.

“We are planning to draw housewives to movie theaters, because so far all plans have been made for young people. We want to reach people between the ages of 30 and 45 and above. We also want to draw people to movie theaters outside the shopping malls,” he said.

Cem Erkul stated another goal of the Cultur Ministry was to reduce ticket prices and they worked on new legal regulations. “We are almost done with it. But Turkish Parliament will evaluate it after January. We want movie theaters to show Turkish films for longer periods. When they screen a film only for one week, people cannot find the chance to see it,” he pointed out.

Turkish movies thrive in quantity but miserable in quality

Many Turkish silver screen fans find the presence of Turkish films ‘raiding’ movie theaters excessively, quite disturbing. ‘9 of 10 Turkish movies are pure garbage, waste of time and effort’ one viewer says, while another adds, ‘Turkish movies have no concerns regarding art, they are cheap, idea-less motioned slide-shows to claim the money of ignorant Turkish viewers, brainwashed by idiotic TV series. Turkish ‘viewers’ like or are forced to like below the belt jokes, swearing, nudity and prolonged ‘dramatical’ scenes and greedy film producers and untalented clowns who call themselves film directors abuse this to the bitter end in Turkey.

Don’t get fooled by the increasing number of Turkish films collecting awards in international festivals, too many Turkish movies in Turkish cinemas will endanger the quality greatly, one anonoymous critic says. “İncir Reçeli”, “Öfkeli Çılgınlık Karamsar Çile”, “Mavi Pansiyon”, “İz” ve “Kaledeki Yalnızlık”, ” Kaybedenler Kulübü” were respectable Turkish movies in 2011, but many of the rest belong into a dumpster.

While only 75 domestic films were featured in Turkish theaters between 2000 and 2005, this figure increased to 361 between 2005 and 2011. The spread of shopping centers across Turkey is also seen as a factor in the rise in interest toward movies.

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