Emotion, Space and Society 40 (2021) 100804

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Emotion, Space and Society

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/emospa

At the Nexus of cinema, city and memory: Resisting the demolition of

Istanbul’s historical Emek movie theatre
Özlem Öz a, *, Kaya Özkaracalar b
a
Bogazici University, IIBF, Güney Kampus, 34342, Bebek, Istanbul, Turkey
b
Bahçeşehir University, Galata Yerleşkesi, Istanbul, Turkey

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Emek was the oldest surviving movie theatre in Istanbul when it was demolished in 2013 so that a shopping mall
Urban resistance could be built in its place, spawning a persistent civic resistance. Sitting at the juxtaposition of the vibrant lit­
Emotion eratures on urban studies, film studies, and memory studies, the article demonstrates that emotions, evoked by
Memory
memories, have a part in triggering urban resistance, adding to the flourishing literature on how emotions inspire
Urban transformation
Place attachment
and sustain activism. Specifically, it provides ethnographic evidence for the presence of a positive link between
Movie theatres place attachment and willingness to engage in place-protective behaviour, stressing the role played by memories
Istanbul in this regard. Focusing on a historical movie theatre, on the other hand, also reveals the complex spatiality of
Beyoğlu cinematic experience, stressing the importance of social relations and vicinity of the theatre (the street in
Gentrification particular) in this specific context. A final set of contributions derived from the case of Emek relates to the
notions of “failure” and “sustainability of activism” given that the resistance to Emek’s demolition is charac­
terised by its resilience and persistence as well as a determination to “resist to forget”, despite the failure,
practices of emotional reflexivity playing a key role in this respect.

1. Introduction
An auditorium in central Istanbul was packed with more than 600
people on December 6, 2016, who were there to watch a documentary
about the demolition of the historical Emek movie theatre and the
resistance to this demolition. Emek was the oldest surviving movie
theatre in Istanbul (opened in 1924), and emotions concerning its de­
molition did indeed run high, spawning a years-long resistance. A self-
reflective discussion followed the screening, since many among the
audience were active participants in the resistance. Feeling defeated,
“we lost a battle, let’s face it,” said an activist, whereas a senior figure
from the Chamber of Architects (one of the leading agents of the resis­
tance) declared that “we will be defeated if and only if we legitimize the
demolition of Emek by settling for the fake Emek,” referring to the
replica of the theatre that was built on the upper floors of its original
place, which was now converted into an upper-scale shopping mall.
Another activist said, “action does not only nourish from rational
thought, but also from emotions, and I see that there is sufficient
emotional energy to continue the struggle, albeit in a new form, via the
boycott of the new theatre.”
The case of the historical Emek movie theatre is symbolic of the kind
of urban transformation Istanbul has been going through in recent de­
cades in that a fake, glittery replica is promoted to replace a genuine
historical theatre, exemplifying a lack of ‘place caring’ (Till, 2012).
Beyoğlu, the historical centre of Istanbul’s film cluster (called Yeşilçam),
is a central neighbourhood that has been a target of an aggressive
neoliberal transformation in recent decades, involving opening up
touristic boutique hotels, high-class entertainment locales and shopping
centres. Emek, located in Beyoğlu, was shut down in 2009 as part of a
project to demolish the building to construct a shopping mall in its place.
The project spawned a persistent resistance, and cinephiles’ memories
involving a rather unique spectatorship experience around Emek ap­
pears to have been one of the key factors which fuelled this resistance.
The case of Emek provides a rich avenue to explore how emotions,
evoked by memories, might trigger urban resistance as well as allowing
us to better understand the emotional consequences of urban trans­
formation and gentrification. As such, the article sits at the juxtaposition
of the vibrant literatures on urban studies, film studies, and memory
studies. The contributions afforded by analysing these intertwined re­
lations in the case of historical Emek movie theatre are as follows. First,
it contributes to the relevant debates in the literature (Lewicka, 2011;
Scannell and Gifford, 2010; Walker and Ryan, 2008) by providing

* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: ozlem.oz@boun.edu.tr (Ö. Öz), kaya.ozkaracalar@comm.bau.edu.tr (K. Özkaracalar).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2021.100804
Received 6 September 2020; Received in revised form 9 May 2021; Accepted 11 May 2021
Available online 24 May 2021
1755-4586/© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Ö. Öz and K. Özkaracalar
ethnographic evidence for the presence of a positive link between place
attachment and willingness to engage in place-protective behaviour.
Second, it stresses that place memories may play a major role in this
regard (Lewicka, 2005: 392; Manzo and Devine-Wright, 2014). A related
contribution concerns the fact that the focus in the place attachment
literature has largely been on neighbourhood, city and home (Cross,
2015; Lewicka, 2008; Manzo, 2003), whereas by focusing on a historical
movie theatre, the paper demonstrates that place attachment is also very
strong in this specific context, with a particular emphasis attributed to
social relations and the vicinity of the theatre (the street in particular).
This also provides insights for the film studies literature given that the
case of Emek in this regard stresses the importance of the theatre itself
(Briley, 2009; Gauthier and Barnard, 2009; Kuhn, 2017) and its environs
(Gregory and Grant, 2014) as well as the social experiences surrounding
the activity of ‘going to the pictures’ (Allen, 2006; Berry, 2016; Ercole
et al., 2017; Kuhn, 1999, 2017). A final set of contributions relates to the
role of emotions in inspiring and sustaining activism. In this regard, the
case of Emek, with its unique combination of “ladder of emotions”
(Woods et al., 2012), not only underlines the role of emotions evoked by
memories in inspiring activism but also provides valuable insights for
the notions of failure (Sjøvoll et al., 2020) and sustainability in activism
(Brown and Pickerill, 2009), given that the resistance to Emek’s de­
molition is characterised by its resilience and persistence as well as a
determination to ’resist to forget’, despite the failure.
It has been acknowledged in the literature that “if place relations
should be studied in all their complexities, we need nuanced and
engaged methods that allow us to do so” (Korjonen-Kuusipuro and
Merilainen-Hyvarinen, 2016: 33). As such, qualitative methods are
much needed “to complement the overwhelming array of quantitative
empirical analyses of emotions” (DiEnno and Thompson, 2013: 65). The
importance of ethnographic methods in studying emotions has partic­
ularly been highlighted in this respect. Through these methods, it is
argued, it is possible to “document the ways in which the participants
narrate their feelings of loss, their memories of a lost place, the pain of
such remembrance and the nostalgia of a past long lost” (Korjo­
nen-Kuusipuro and Merilainen-Hyvarinen, 2016: 33).
Our paper provides an ethnographic study of Emek, which we con­
ducted as participants and observers (Brown and Pickerill, 2009) in the
years-long resistance to its demolition. It follows a multi-source strategy:
Apart from our participant observation notes, the data we collected and
analysed includes oral histories as well as recollections recounted in the
press and social media, including newspapers, film fan magazines,
organizational documents, emails, press reports and commentaries as
well as a thorough analysis of a collectively produced documentary film
on the resistance and photographic images of protest events, the latter
two specifically permitting some analysis of non-verbal embodied ex­
pressions of emotion as well (Woods et al., 2012: 569–70). The accounts
of the participants and/or supporters of the resistance to Emek’s de­
molition reveal how they remembered Emek, and what the cinema and
its environs meant for them, in addition to their views on the resistance.
We give in the text a particular consideration to emotional tones of these
accounts and responses given that “how people remember is as much a
text to be deciphered as what they remember” (Kuhn, 2002: 6).
The fact that we, as the authors, have also been among the partici­
pants of the resistance to Emek’s demolition, enables us to incorporate,
when relevant, our experiences as well, in line with the premises of
analytic auto-ethnography (Anderson 2006) in that our voices are added
to all other voices, enhancing the understanding of the link between
place memories, emotions and resistance. Being an insider indeed mo­
tivates the researcher to understand the participants’ place relations and
emotions since “the researcher and the participants have memories
connected to the same place, potentially sharing some common history
and meanings through which they can recognise each other’s experi­
ences and emotions” (Korjonen-Kuusipuro and Merilainen-Hyvarinen,
2016: 28–9).
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Emotion, Space and Society 40 (2021) 100804
2. Theoretical framework
2.1. Place attachment
Place attachment as a concept has been used to explain the way a
community mourns for places lost to urban transformation (Gregory and
Grant, 2014). Till (2012: 10) underlines that “places become a part of
us”, usually through the intimate relationship we have with them; thus,
when places are demolished “an individual’s personal and
intra-subjective emotional ecosystems become damaged”.
For decades, scholars from a variety of disciplines have explored
place attachment, defined as a complex phenomenon incorporating an
emotional bond people form with particular places (Devine-Wright and
Howes, 2010; Lewicka, 2008). Although the favourite target of place
attachment research has been neighbourhood, followed by home and
city, recent studies of place attachment have shown a growing interest in
other places, including informal meeting places such as cafés and pubs,
or local restaurants (Manzo, 2003: 50). According to Lewicka (2008:
211), historical sites, in this regard, create a sense of continuity with the
past, and thus facilitate place attachment. Historical attachment is seen
as “a process of accumulating experience in a place and creating
meaning about those experiences that tie both ordinary and significant
life events to a particular place” (Cross, 2015: 506).
One may feel attached to a place for different reasons. Lewicka
(2011: 221–2) argues that physical places might acquire meaning
through personal and group memories, religious and national symbols,
and through the feelings experienced when being-in-the-place. It has
also been suggested that the remembering of a place may have less to do
with the place per se, and more to do with yearning for the emotion or
mood it once evoked (De Sá, 1998: 69), calling for an investigation of the
impact of time spent in a place together with its all complexities such as
social relations in the place, with their attendant memories and mean­
ings (Lewicka, 2011: 224). Recent reviews of the place attachment
literature criticize current research for having rather restricted notions
of place attachment that do not account for memories and the ways a
range of emotions and experiences contribute to place attachment
(Manzo and Devine-Wright, 2014). There is, thus, a need to investigate
the specific roles played by memories and emotions in place attachment
in more detail, and the case of Emek provides contributions and insights
to this growing body of literature.
2.2. Place loss, memories and spatiality of cinematic experience
It has long been argued that individual and collective memories are
often intermingled; individual memory, in particular, being seen as
relying upon, and sometimes merging with collective memory (Halb­
wachs, 1980: 50–51). Mindful of the “social frames of autobiographical
memories” (Lewicka, 2008: 212) and the debate about “the extent to
which individual stories are culturally scripted or determined,” it has
been argued (Gabriel and Harding, 2020: 46) that “it is possible to both
acknowledge the significance of cultural contexts and discourses and
assert the value of individual remembering”. Accordingly, the meaning
of place is related to the relationship between the individual and the
cultural context (De Sá, 1998: 29). Korjonen-Kuusipuro and
Merilainen-Hyvarinen (2016: 28) write, for instance, that when talking
about lost places, people refer to their memories, both individual and
collective: Individuals remember, but memories are collectively
distributed.
Place as the fabric of memory is perhaps most noticeable when a
familiar place is demolished (De Sá, 1998: 27). Hostility to places could
be in the form of their deliberate destruction against the will of the users,
which is often the case in government urban transformation policies. A
sense of loss through gentrification is also seen as linked to a nostalgic
relationship to the past and to place (e.g. Gabriel and Harding, 2020),
whilst some scholars stress the meaning of places in human lives and
examine how the loss of place affects these meanings, including how
Ö. Öz and K. Özkaracalar
people cope with the losses, and contain longing and nostalgia (Korjo­
nen-Kuusipuro and Merilainen-Hyvarinen, 2016: 33).
Industry specific developments coupled with waves of urban trans­
formation meant movie theatres, which were in rich supply in many
countries as of the 1960s, began to be either closed, left to their own
destiny, or simply turned into something else (De Rosa, 2015). The
growing body of research on cinema-going memory finds a particular
emphasis on the spatiality of cinematic experience in general and on
movie theatres, in particular. Kuhn (1999: 540), for instance, concludes
that for the typical cinemagoer of the 1930s in Britain, cinema-going
appears to have been less about particular films than about experi­
ences surrounding the activity of ‘going to the pictures.’ Accordingly,
the spatiality of the cinematic experiences persisted long after the
memory of particular films had faded (Allen, 2006: 22). The journey to
cinema and the characteristic of the movie theatre itself were particu­
larly well remembered, including such details as “what it was like inside
the cinema: the décor, the seating, the behaviour of the staff and the
audience” (Kuhn et al., 2017: 7).
All this, in turn, is linked to an interesting discussion revolving
around cinema-going memory being revealed as a ‘spectacular event’
against a ‘routine practice’. Briley (2009) writes that there was a time in
which “going to the movies was meant to be a spectacle, both on the
screen and in the theatre itself”; “it was meant to be remembered”. Levitt
(2016: 220) agrees: “an evening out at the movies was an event. Early
movie theatres were designed with spectacular exteriors and equally
magnificent interiors, intended to transform the moviegoers’ experience
even before the film began”. In the era of majestic movie palaces, the
venue, in fact, was seen as a part of the show itself (Gauthier and Bar­
nard, 2009: 331).
Cinema-going has also been associated with the social experience
woven into the fabric of the place in broader terms, including the im­
mediate environs, the street and the surrounding neighbourhood (Allen,
2006: 18). Berry (2016) mentions how cinema going memories in Sidney
reveal rich stories of first dates, friends and encounters. In a similar vein,
while mapping cinema going memories in Rome, Ercole et al. (2017)
highlight the importance of the whole ‘journey’, including walking to
the theatre, and going to the nearby cafes with friends before and/or
after the film. This is very relevant for our purposes, since those who
oppose Emek’s demolition give a particular emphasis to Emek’s envi­
rons, as will be detailed in the following pages.
Therefore, it seems that there was a period (up until the mid-1970s
for the case of Istanbul), during which going to the movies was a part
of the daily life, yet perceived as an opportunity to escape from daily
routines, and the theatre itself is in particular fondly remembered. As the
history of the film industry became increasingly intertwined with that of
technology, however, such experiences have gradually begun to
diminish, as a result of a profound crisis caused by the introduction of
new ways and patterns of consumption of the moving image (De Rosa,
2015: 268). On top of the industry-specific pressures for change came an
aggressive wave of urban transformation in many cities around the
world, and Istanbul was no exception, bringing about intense contesta­
tions as the case of Emek and the firm resistance to its demolition
demonstrate.
2.3. Place-bound emotions as motivators for activism
Recent years have seen an expanded interest within the relevant
literature as to how emotions inspire and sustain activism (Brown and
Pickerill, 2009; DiEnno and Thompson, 2013). Accordingly, in all stages
of protest it is possible to observe a broad spectrum of emotions, both
positive and negative, ranging from hope, empathy, passion, humour,
happiness, and joy to anger, fear, and frustration (Brown and Pickerill,
2009).
Many studies do find a positive relationship between place attach­
ment and willingness to engage in place-protective behaviour, under­
lining that people with a high attachment to a place are willing to defend
3
Emotion, Space and Society 40 (2021) 100804
their places against external interventions (Walker and Ryan, 2008:
150). Attachment is also argued to be rooted in the social aspects of a
place, such as the positive interpersonal relations that occur within it
(Scannell and Gifford, 2010: 290). It should be also noted, at this
juncture, that evidence that attachment leads to social engagement is
mixed in the quantitative studies conducted in the environmental psy­
chology literature. Lewicka (2005), for instance, does not find a direct
relationship between place attachment and willingness to be involved in
various forms of social activity. She, however, finds a consistent and
positive albeit indirect link between the two in another study, the
mediating variable being neighbourhood ties (Lewicka, 2011: 219).
Devine-Wright and Howes (2010), on the other hand, conclude that the
mediating factor between attachment and action could be the meaning
attached to places, and that the stronger the perception that the planned
change would pose a threat of destroying the place’s identity, the
stronger the relation between attachment and action.
In summary, while the role of emotions in mobilizing activism has
received attention, our knowledge of the complexities of the processes
involved as well as the role of particular places and contexts in those
processes remains limited (Brown and Pickerill, 2009: 26–7). According
to Lewicka (2005: 392), a new variable to consider in this regard could
be the interest expressed in one’s own past and in the history of the
place. It is exactly this angle of the issue that we aim to shed light in this
study by exploring how emotions evoked by place memories might have
a part in triggering urban resistance.
3. The case of Emek movie theatre
Over the past years, many of Istanbul’s historic neighbourhoods,
including Beyoğlu, have been subject to extensive urban renewal pro­
jects. As mentioned above, Beyoğlu hosted Istanbul’s film cluster, which
had already begun to dissolve for sector-specific reasons, and the final
remnants of the cluster in Beyoğlu became one of the targets and victims
of this aggressive urban transformation aimed at gentrifying the district.
As Beyoglu’s film theatres disappear one by one, Emek’s manager Hik­
met Dikmen repeatedly called for saving ‘Emek at least’: “Saray, Alka­
zar, Yeni Melek, İpek, Rüya … and then Elhamra. Now it’s Emek. I beg
you, let’s do our best to protect Emek at least,” he sighs (Emek Bizim
Istanbul Bizim, 2016).
The historical Cercle d’Orient building complex which hosted Emek
on its rear along the Yeşilçam Street as well as the Rüya Film Theatre and
the İnci pastry shop on its front along the İstiklal Avenue, were leased by
the municipality to a contracting firm, which intended to demolish it
and build a shopping mall in its place, and Emek closed its curtains for
good on October 26, 2009. At the time of its closure, Emek was the oldest
surviving movie theatre in Istanbul having opened in 1924 as Melek,
renamed as Emek in 1958 (see Fig. 1). Its presence in Yeşilçam had been
one of the triggering factors for the concentration of the Turkish film
cluster on this street and in its environs.
Furthermore, at the time of its closure, Emek was one of the few
movie theatres which had not been converted into a multiplex of smaller
screens in smaller halls. Featuring a single, gigantic screen addressing
close to one thousand seats, it was, in effect, surviving as the only true
‘cinema palace’ in Istanbul. Still further, the entrance to this movie
palace opened directly to the street in contrast to most other film the­
atres that were either located in newly built shopping malls or in other
arcades hosting unrelated shops, which filmgoers had to first pass by
before reaching the ticket vendor of the cinemas located deep inside
these venues.
3.1. Resistance to Emek’s demolition
The first round of protests against the closure of Emek occurred in
April 2010, concomitant with the commencement of the International
Istanbul Film Festival, which was now being hosted elsewhere as Emek,
the traditional venue of the festival, was closed. The earliest sign of an
Ö. Öz and K. Özkaracalar
Fig. 1. Emek movie theatre.
impending campaign had first been visible with the opening of a web site
titled as emeksinemasiniyasatalim.com (“Let’s Keep the Emek Cinema
Alive”) on March 31, 2010. On the opening ceremony of the festival on
April 2nd, a small group of protesters belonging to a civic initiative
calling themselves as the Isyanbul Kültür Sanat Varyetesi (the Isyanbul
Culture and Arts Variety), began blowing horns, shouting slogans and
distributing leaflets as the Minister of Culture had taken the stage to
make a speech. In addition, several figures from the Turkish film scene
who formally took the stage during the ceremony also publicly
expressed their dismay at the fact that the festival could not be held in
Emek and called for its re-opening. On April 18th, around three thou­
sand protesters marched from the Taksim Square in the main city centre,
along the İstiklal Avenue to the gate of Emek on the Yeşilçam Street to
hold an alternative closing ceremony of the Festival. While the April
protests seemed to show that the campaign was gaining momentum, as
the April 18th march had been one of the largest mass protests against an
urban gentrification project in Istanbul, the Rüya cinema on Cercle
d’Orient also shut down in May, with the small but extremely popular
Fig. 2. A Protest March for Emek (The banner reads “Emek will not reconcile with capital”. Emek means “labour” in Turkish).
4
Emotion, Space and Society 40 (2021) 100804
İnci pastry shop remaining as the only operating venture in the other­
wise vacant Cercle d’Orient complex.
In 2011, pro-Emek activists began re-organizing on a larger scale
than before. While the April 2010 protests had been organized by the
Varyete group with subsequent participation from various individuals
and informal groups, a broader alliance was set up this time under the
name Emek Bizim Istanbul Bizim Platformu, the “Emek is Ours Istanbul is
Ours Platform” (the Platform hereafter), which included the Labour
Union of Cinema Workers, Association of Film Critics and several urban
resistance groups, such as İMECE, besides the Varyete group. The Plat­
form called for and organized another mass protest march, which was
carried out on December 24, 2011 as several thousand protesters
marched to the gate of Emek despite freezing temperatures (see Fig. 2).
There was no movement on the part of the construction company
until the İnci pastry shop was forcibly evacuated on December 7, 2012
with scuffles breaking out between the police and the owners of the shop
as well as a handful of protesters who had rushed to the scene. With İnci
out of the way, it was clear that the demolition of the Cercle d’Orient
Ö. Öz and K. Özkaracalar
complex was becoming more and more imminent. Under these cir­
cumstances, the activists for saving Emek introduced a relatively more
radical protest action than previous activities with some protesters
breaking the closed gate of Emek and carrying a several hours-long sit-in
protest inside the vacant theatre on March 31, 2013. While this brief
Occupy-Emek protest ended peacefully as the protestors left the building
after holding a symbolic alternative opening of the 2013 Film Festival
there, the now-traditional annual protest march from the city centre to
the gate of Emek on April 7th was violently broken up by police using
tear gas and water cannons when the marchers pushed against the police
line at the entrance of the Yeşilçam Street which had been sealed off for
the first time since the campaign began. The İstiklal Avenue became a
battle ground between the police and the regrouping protesters, and
several activists were detained in the ensuing melee.
Arguably, this street resistance, drawing much public attention to
police brutality against a counter-gentrification movement, would serve
as an inspiration for the Gezi resistance, which would engulf the whole
country late next month when police moved against a sit-in at the Gezi
Park of Taksim, which was the target of yet another project to build yet
another shopping complex. While the Gezi resistance, which would
entail nation-wide protests reaching the level of a popular revolt, would
save the Gezi Park, all the efforts of the Emek is Ours Istanbul is Ours
Platform could not stop the eventual demolition of the Cercle d’Orient
complex (see Fig. 3), which was carried out on May 21st (only a few days
before the Gezi resistance was sparked), and the construction of the new
shopping mall began immediately afterwards.
Ironically, an Istanbul court, overseeing a case instigated by the
Istanbul Chamber of Architects against the project on the grounds that it
was illegal as it destroyed a historical heritage of the city, which had first
issued a freeze order against the project and then annulled it, re-
introduced it in December 2014, accepting an appeal by the Chamber
of Architects, almost two years after Cercle d’Orient had already been
demolished. Nevertheless, the re-introduced freeze order meant that the
ongoing construction of the shopping mall should halt. However, the
construction company went ahead in completing the construction as a
fait accompli and the shopping mall opened in 2016.
The failure to prevent the demolition of Emek initially left the Plat­
form in disarray. After the freeze order was re-instated, the Film Critics
Association organized a petition signed by a large number of figures
from the Turkish film scene demanding a halt to the construction of the
Fig. 3. Demolition of Emek.
5
Emotion, Space and Society 40 (2021) 100804
shopping mall. As the construction of the mall was finalized, the Plat­
form began raising its voice again, in the form of public calls issued
online, calling for a boycott of the newly-built complex. The Film Critics
Association itself announced that they would not attend any screenings
to be held in the new theatre located in the uppermost floor of this
building, stating that “they cannot accept or digest this unlawfulness”
(SIYAD, 2016). As of now, the strategy of the campaign against the
demolition of Emek involves a boycott of the new theatre on one hand
and the continuing court cases against the project on the other.
3.2. Emotions and memories as mobilisers of the resistance
As mentioned above, Istanbul in general and Beyoğlu in particular
have been going through an aggressive wave of urban transformation in
recent decades, and the campaign against the project entailing the de­
molition of Emek was one of several campaigns against similar projects
such as the gentrification of the nearby Tarlabaşı neighbourhood. Deniz
Özgür, speaking on behalf of the Platform, points to the perceived link
between the project entailing the demolition of Emek and other
gentrification projects, in a proclamation during a protest on December
24, 2011: “We are perfectly aware that the Emek project is not inde­
pendent from the larger urban transformation project that will trans­
form the entire Beyoğlu district; streets, neighbourhoods, squares, parks,
they all belong to us!” In a similar vein, another speaker during the
protest on April 7, 2013 stresses that “Defending the Emek Theatre is
defending the city!” Furthermore, activist Begüm Özden Fırat, speaking
at a forum held on the Yeşilçam Street on April 24, 2011, privileges the
high profile, much publicized Emek campaign itself as a “threshold”:
“We are standing at a threshold … for all urban renewal projects planned
for Beyoğlu” (Emek Bizim Istanbul Bizim, 2016).
An activist (Senem Aytaç, film critic) underlines that Emek touched
many individuals for various reasons: “Whether it is because Emek is a
historical movie theatre, or a part of cultural heritage, or important for
personal/collective memories, or for the right to the city, people united
against its demolition” (Oğuz, 2013). In addition to having a stand
against gentrification and neoliberal urban transformation in general, a
key factor shaping or reinforcing the views and motivations of those
opposing the demolition of Emek appears to be emotions fuelled by their
memories related to this particular cinema. Cem Altınsaray, a vocal
supporter of the campaign in the social media and a persistent
Ö. Öz and K. Özkaracalar
participant in street demonstrations as well as the 2013 sit-in, had, for
instance, tweeted as follows on the weeks leading to the sit-in when the
demolition seemed imminent: “Emek had become a home and a school.
An assembly of friends and a love fountain. It is now only a memory. A
memory which our children will never live through” (Altınsaray,
2013a). When Emek was indeed demolished on May 21, 2013, he
tweeted: “I will keep Emek alive in my memories till I die. I will never set
my foot into the mummy cinema to be built using its name” (Altınsaray,
2013b). In a similar vein, in a personal interview (conducted on May 21,
2015), Ceylan Özçelik, a television professional at the time (now a film
director) and participant in street demonstrations for Emek says “it
shouldn’t be closed because our memories are living in that building.”
During a street protest, a writer and veteran film critic (Fatih Özgüven)
states that when he was a kid, he watched his first movie at Emek, and
that’s why he is against its demolition (Emek Bizim Istanbul Bizim,
2016).
Not all personal memories involving Emek are necessarily related to
it being a film exhibition venue. Can Atalay, himself an active partici­
pant in pro-Emek demonstrations as well as being the lawyer pursuing
court cases against the project entailing its demolition, points specif­
ically to one other aspect of Emek’s symbolic importance: “Emek is the
place where the first Workers’ Day celebration after the 1980 coup
d’etat was held” (Oğuz, 2013). To put this into context, it should be
noted that the nearby Taksim Square has been the site of mass rallies
celebrating the Workers’ Day, and that the gentrification of Beyoğlu,
according to urban activist Cihan Uzunçarşılı Baysal, carries an ideo­
logical tone: “Taksim Square is currently being transformed into some­
thing other than what it has been historically; that is, May the 1st Square
of the labour movement. They are trying to erase this legacy” (Şahin,
2019). Hence, what is implicit in Atalay’s remark about Emek being a
site of a significant Workers’ Day celebration in the turbulent post-coup
days is the suggestion that opposing Emek’s demolition also means
holding on to such a legacy.
The following remarks of another pro-Emek activist stresses, as
envisioned in the literature (e.g. Korjonen-Kuusipuro and
Merilainen-Hyvarinen, 2016), how both individual and collective
memories are relevant as mobilizing emotions: “Emek carries the history
of cinema in Turkey. On micro level, it also carries my own history. So, if
they were to demolish this place, my soul and heart would be demol­
ished. That’s why we will be here fighting till the end” (Emek Bizim
Istanbul Bizim, 2016).
For older generation movie-goers, Emek’s significance revolves
around their memories involving watching memorable movies there,
Refika, a cinephile dismayed at Emek’s demolition, for instance, vividly
remembering waiting in very long queues to watch West Side Story in
Emek (personal interview, conducted on May 29, 2019). Citing the same
movie, a tweeter user who was moved when she saw the photographs of
the semi-ruined state of Emek’s interiors (shared by participants of the
sit-in) tweeted the following: “I had watched West Side Story and many
other movies in Emek when I was young. I am about to cry from sorrow
today” (ilke, 2013). In fact, a profound sorrow associated with memories
lost (Brown and Pickerill, 2009; Korjonen-Kuusipuro and
Merilainen-Hyvarinen, 2016) has repeatedly been underlined as one of
the most salient emotions with regards to Emek’s demolition.
Regarding the experience of witnessing the semi-ruined state of the
interiors of Emek on the eve of demolition after remaining closed for
four years, Ceylan Özçelik said that she deliberately avoided this expe­
rience by refraining from joining the sit-in because: “I thought that my
heart couldn’t handle it maybe. I just want to remember that cinema the
way it was.” Unlike the above-quoted older-generation supporters,
however, this activist de-emphasized the experience of watching
particular movies in Emek in favour of an experience of ‘being in the
place’: “It was so special. I felt as if I was in a palace or something. It was
really charming. Each and every time I went to Emek, I felt joy. Even
when the film was bad, it did not matter. I even cannot remember the
films, I remember the sense and the smell.” Some activists state that they
6
Emotion, Space and Society 40 (2021) 100804
felt so attached to Emek that they had their favourite seats. One states
that his favourite seat is “up in the balcony, towards the middle”,
whereas the manager of Emek says “mine is the 12th row. I love it”
(Emek Bizim Istanbul Bizim, 2016).
For middle-aged and even younger cinephiles; that is, for those
whose movie-going experiences date to the 1980s and onwards, mem­
ories about Emek tend to revolve around it being the main venue of the
International Istanbul Film Festival, which in the pre-internet era was
the only access of Turkey’s cinephiles to vintage and contemporary key
films of non-mainstream world cinema. We as the authors of this paper,
for example, remember the joy and excitement of traveling from Ankara
to Istanbul to attend the Festival and see films in Emek in the 1990s as
two young university students. It should also be stressed that the Festival
and hence Emek not only provided means to view such films but also to
witness the presence of world-famous filmmakers, hosted by the
Festival, in person in Emek itself. In 2014, when the shopping mall
construction was proceeding on the former site of Emek, the above-
quoted Altınsaray shared a photo of the construction site, tweeting:
“Can you imagine having hosted Angelopoulos, Antonioni, Bertolucci,
Kieslowski, Kazan, Sautet, Saura here?” (Altınsaray, 2014).
An activist, who is a film critic from the younger generation (Zeynep
Dadak), stresses the importance of the foyer, underlining that the foyer
is a common space where people mingle (Emek Bizim Istanbul Bizim,
2016). Markedly, supporting Kuhn et al. (2017), many regular or
frequent movie-goers to Emek know the names of the cinema personnel
and had apparently established some degree of personal acquaintance
with them. Emek Bizim Istanbul Bizim (2016) summarizes this as fol­
lows: “small necessities from Aunt Ayse, tickets from Ms Guner, popcorn
from Ms Naciye, movies from Mr Omer, seats from Murat, Aykut and
Hayri”. Uğur Vardan, a prominent film critic who vocally promoted the
anti-demolition campaign in his newspaper column as well as regularly
participating in the street demonstrations, had written the following in
2016 in an article titled ‘We grew up and everything changed’: “There
was a place where the heart of the Festival was beating, and there were
golden-hearted people there. The name of that place was Emek” (Var­
dan, 2016). In the same article, Vardan also recounts how, when he was
a penniless student in the 1980s, the manager of Emek would discreetly
allow youths who could not afford a ticket into Festival screenings, after
everyone else had been seated. A film historian wrote about this aspect
of Emek back in the 1990s (Evren, 1998: 80), emphasizing that a movie
theatre is not only remembered with its charming architecture or with
magnificent films shown there. “What makes Emek Movie Theatre, ‘our’
Emek,” he writes, “is the warmth of all its personnel from the owner to
the manager, from the fellow that works at the buffet to the projector …
Perhaps the way they make you feel at home.” Authors of this paper
confirm this feeling with regard to Emek, adding also the contribution of
one particular stray dog in this respect, which had made the lobby of the
theatre his home. He was a part of the warm atmosphere and
well-treated by the cinema personnel and the audiences alike. It seems
that “home” is indeed made through the addition of things, relationships
and feelings to space, including the potential contributions of
non-humans (Baxter, 2017).
It should also be noted that memories of ‘going to Emek’ involve not
only Emek’s premises in a strict sense but also the short strip to the
Yeşilçam Street along its entrance, housing nearby cafes, Han Café and
Bap Café in particular, where filmgoers would go before or after a
screening or, as usual during the Festival, between two screenings.
Ceylan Özçelik talks in a particularly detailed fashion about the short
route along Emek’s entrance, exhibiting a vivid picture impressed in her
mind: “There was Han Café there and there were some chestnut sellers
and there was this old lady Ayşe who died I think three or four years ago,
she was selling water and cigarettes and things like that in a small shop
near Emek. And across Emek, there was the SinePop cinema, which is
also shut down. The street was full of joy and happiness. When you walk
in Emek’s street, you can always run into people you know. You sit in
Han Café, drink your tea afterwards or before you would see a movie.
Ö. Öz and K. Özkaracalar
[…] I adore that street. That street meant so much to me and to a lot of
people”. It is not surprising then that Yeşilçam Street has played such a
central role in the resistance. An activist (Begüm Özden Fırat) describes
this role as follows: “It is a well-known tactic often used by urban
transformers: they were trying to make Yeşilçam a desolate, unfre­
quented, criminal street. Thus, being there was a statement. In fact, the
memory of the struggle became solid -in a way, found its place-on the
Yesilçam Street” (Oğuz, 2013). In a press release (Emek Bizim Istanbul
Bizim, 2011), the Platform emphasizes Emek’s ties to the street and
states that “if you sever Emek Theatre’s ties to the street, it will no longer
be Emek Theatre. We, as the public, demand to walk into this theatre,
which belongs to us, through this street”.
4. Theoretical implications: place memories, emotions and
resistance to urban transformation
Zooming into the case of Emek in this paper enabled us to explore the
link of memories and emotions with resistance to urban transformation.
We have seen that being ‘moved’ by emotions fed by memories served as
an impetus to act, triggering social action and protest, adding to the
flourishing literature on how emotions inspire and sustain activism
(Brown and Pickerill, 2009b; DiEnno and Thompson, 2013). We have
seen that the concept of place attachment (Lewicka, 2011; Walker and
Ryan, 2008) is of special relevance in this respect, the case of Emek
providing a clear support for the presence of a positive link between
place attachment and willingness to engage in place-protective behav­
iour. As suggested in the literature (e.g. Woods et al., 2012), high
attachment indeed seems to motivate people to defend the place against
external interventions, and emotional ties of people and place can
become highly intense if the place is perceived to be under severe threat.
Moreover, as proposed in the literature (Lewicka, 2005: 392; Manzo and
Devine-Wright, 2014), the interest expressed in the history of the place
and place memories seem to play a major role in this regard, memories
and emotions regarding Emek in some cases resonating at broader levels
such that Emek, being located on Yeşilçam Street, echoes Istanbul’s
disintegrated old film cluster and hence “carries the history of cinema in
Turkey”, as noted by one of the above-quoted activists, reflecting the
complex relationship between space and memory (Mills, 2006).
As in extensively studied places in the literature such as neighbour­
hoods and cities (Cross, 2015; Lewicka, 2008, 2011; Manzo, 2003), in
this different venue; that is, in a historical movie theatre, place attach­
ment is also very strong and comes with a particular emphasis on the
importance of social relations, a finding which carries interesting in­
sights for the film studies literature as well. Specifically, the case of
Emek stresses the complex social and spatial aspects of cinema going not
only regarding the importance attributed to the films watched and not
only even to the theatre itself (Briley, 2009; Gauthier and Barnard, 2009;
Kuhn, 2017) but also with regard to its environs (Gregory and Grant,
2014), encompassing all social experiences surrounding the activity of
“going to the movies” (Allen, 2006; Berry, 2016; Ercole et al., 2017;
Kuhn, 1999, 2017). In this regard, Emek’s being dubbed as “the cinema
whose doors open to street” has been especially and repeatedly high­
lighted by the activists to underscore the uniqueness of Emek, not only in
enabling an unmediated filmgoing experience without exposure to
non-filmic commercial ventures but also with respect to its links to the
Yeşilçam Street, the centre and the name-giver of Istanbul’s historical
film cluster.
Further layering the debates in the relevant literature (Kuhn, 2017;
Levitt, 2016), we observe that older generations that opposed Emek’s
demolition tend to remember and emphasize both the films seen and the
theatre, whereas for younger generations the social and spatial aspects
of cinema going have a stronger presence in memory. The types of
memories triggered by the same theatre might, therefore, indeed be
different for subsequent generations (Levitt, 2016), underlining also the
relevance of the time dimension in the study of place loss and emotions
(Korjonen-Kuusipuro and Merilainen-Hyvarinen, 2016).
7
Emotion, Space and Society 40 (2021) 100804
Regarding the unique “ladder of emotions” (Woods et al., 2012)
associated with the case of Emek, we see that initially the most salient
emotions are mostly linked to sorrow, spawned by an anticipation of
losing a venue that carries treasured, happy and joyful memories.
Following the demolishment of the theatre, on the other hand, a feeling
of defeat as well as a profound sorrow again, this time spawned by losing
the beloved theatre for good have prevailed. In this regard, the case of
Emek links to the line of literature focusing on the geography of failure,
in which it is argued that “we tend to want to forget” failures (Sjøvoll
et al., 2020). In the case of Emek, however, many participants do resist
to forget (let alone “want to forget”).Remembering Emek, albeit as a scar
(Sjøvoll et al., 2020), is in fact seen as a continuation of the resistance, as
it finds its most solid expression in the boycott of the new venue.
Relatedly, we also learn from the case of Emek that practices of
emotional reflexivity, as exemplified in the very beginning of this article
(by the self-reflective discussion that followed the screening of the
documentary) might indeed prove useful for sustaining activism (Brown
and Pickerill, 2009: 33). Further, the memory of the resistance to Emek’s
demolition has lived in and contributed to the larger urban resistance
movements in the city; for instance, to the Gezi Park protests as noted
above, marking yet another form of sustainability.
The stand of urban developers, exemplified by the ex-Beyoğlu mayor
Misbah Demircan’s version of the city that “continuously renews itself”
and also by his such statements as “you cannot resist change just because
it doesn’t fit into your memories” (Oskay, 2017) is obviously in clash
with that of the protestors, which is, nevertheless, carefully defined not
as a mere nostalgia. This is mainly because nostalgia is often associated
in the case of Beyoğlu with the exploitation of an imagined cosmopolitan
past for economic gain by urban developers (Eldem, 2013), and we
know that it is also suspected in the literature for “its illusions” as well as
running “the risk of constricting our ability to act in the present” but is,
at the same time, admired for its “empowering agency” (Atia and Davies,
2010: 181). The Platform in a press release (Emek Bizim Istanbul Bizim,
2011) underlines this exact point; that is, the importance of ‘acting in the
present’ whilst ‘owning our past’, as follows: “Standing against the de­
molition of Emek Movie Theatre is about constructing our present as
much as it is about owning our past, it is a struggle to imagine a different
future. … It is an attempt to reclaim the city and urban space from
capital and powers that be, daring to re-utter and reconstruct the notion
of publicness”. Here, emotions against Emek’s demolition do get inter­
twined with broader feelings concerning the neoliberalism-driven,
gentrification-based urban transformation, and thus, the resistance to
Emek’s demolition is described as a demand for, and, in fact, when
thought together with the overall emotional intensity of the resistance,
not only as a “demand” but also a “cry” for the right to the city (Lefebvre,
1971).
5. Final remarks
Digital natives, write Kuhn et al. (2017: 11), “typically consume
large quantities of films in domestic or other private contexts before ever
setting foot inside a cinema”. The proliferation of the new modes for
consuming films (first, television and later, home video, DVD and blu-
ray technologies, and now online streams) has indeed been taking au­
diences out of the movie theatre. This trend will perhaps be even more
pronounced in the post-Covid era. Gauthier and Barnard (2009: 332)
state that “watching a film in a conventional movie theatre can now be
qualified, in retrospect, as a “classic filmic experience”; ” yet, for a while
it was the only film experience possible. It can thus be argued that
nowadays moviegoing retains relatively little of the specialness it once
had (Briley, 2009). The cineplex with its unappealing architecture, often
sitting in a mall, indeed falls short of the glamorous appeal of the picture
palace (Levitt, 2016).
If places are haunted by many different spirits, “the urge to seek out
the ghosts of places is bound up with the politics of remembering the
past and, more specifically, with the spatialisation of memory and how
Ö. Öz and K. Özkaracalar
memory is sought, articulated, and inscribed upon space” (Edensor,
2005: 829). Bell (1997: 824) argues that the ghosts we sense in places
may also include our own ghosts, and “when we sense our own ghost in a
place we are likely to experience thereby a deep sense of belonging to
that place”. Ruins might also evoke strong emotions in this regard, as
illustrated in the text with some activists finding it very hard to even
look at the ruined state of the theatre, consciously avoiding seeing it in
that state, thinking that they couldn’t stand it emotionally. The case of
Emek, with its links to a particular modality of neoliberal urban trans­
formation and to the corresponding resistance that proved persistent,
demonstrates that the responses to urban development when it threatens
precious memories can be very emotional, which might in turn generate
political possibilities. Memories and emotions, it seems, can both inspire
and sustain activism; sustained activism itself, in turn, becoming a part
of the treasured memories associated with this very place and its history:
the persistent resistance to Emek’s demolition is now a part of its
glorious history.
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