Child marriage in Turkey, on film and in reality
A cinematic depiction of five adolescent sisters being married off one by one in rural Turkey, the movie "Mustang" has received plentiful accolades abroad; including an Academy Award nomination as Best Foreign Film.
But in the country where the feature film was shot by French-Turkish director Deniz Gamze Ergüven, the reaction is decidedly more mixed.
"There’s this idea you see in online comments and other responses that Turkey is being depicted wrongly in the movie," says Eylem Atakav, a senior lecturer in film and television studies at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom. "But the stories I’ve heard from Turkish women who were married off as children are far worse, much more brutal, than anything it shows."...
Read the rest of my article about the film "Mustang," and the issue of child marriage in Turkey, on Women's eNews: "Oscar-Nominee 'Mustang' Puts Turkey in Unwanted Spotlight"
"There’s this idea you see in online comments and other responses that Turkey is being depicted wrongly in the movie," says Eylem Atakav, a senior lecturer in film and television studies at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom. "But the stories I’ve heard from Turkish women who were married off as children are far worse, much more brutal, than anything it shows."...
Read the rest of my article about the film "Mustang," and the issue of child marriage in Turkey, on Women's eNews: "Oscar-Nominee 'Mustang' Puts Turkey in Unwanted Spotlight"