How Spring Ended. © Meral Simer.

The story of Turkish women animators is short -- a blip on the global animation and the women in communication scenes. Some reasons for this readily come to mind. Animation itself is relatively new to Turkey, a phenomenon mostly isolated to the 1970s and beyond. Until recently, women had a very weak presence in cartooning, the profession from which many Turkish animators drifted. Furthermore, because of social and cultural norms, the field of animation was considered a male domain.

The few women who have ventured into animation can be categorized into those who did one or two films in the 1970s and left for other fields, and those just beginning. The differences between the two groups are considerable. The first generation of women animators worked under an informal mentor-protégé system and used traditional animation techniques, while younger animators studied animation (primarily computer) at Anadolu University and then went to work in advertising.

Veteran Women Animators
Meral Simer, Meral Erez, and Ayla Seyhan form the core of the first generation; all three were animtors in the 1970s.Simer's major work was Bahar Nasil Tamam Oldu (How Spring Ended), a five-minute film produced in 1972. Erez, who also worked under her maiden name Meral Birden, has collaborated closely with her animator husband, Cemal Erez. In a telephone interview July 10, 1998, Erez claimed she was the first woman animator trained in film and not hailing from the mentor-protégé tradition; she graduated from the Istanbul Academy of Fine Arts (Mimar Sinan University) and attended fine arts courses in Italy and did film studies in France. Her films with Cemal Erez span from 1976/1977 to 1998 and are Il Gatto (The Cat), Bisiklet (Bicycle), Les Cordes (Ropes), and Haset (Jealousy).

l Gatto, Bisiklet and Les Cordes. © Meral Erez.

Erez, whose quarter-century animation career surpasses that of all other women and most men, has been greatly influenced by Eastern European animation, the surrealistic films of Luis Buñuel, the new wave films of Jean Vigo, and the paintings of Goya and Dali. She described her work as dealing with universal themes such as jealousy and fear, containing "no authentic elements whatsoever," and being devoid of "anything about my national identity."

The Kafka-esque nature of the Erez work has led to ambiguity in determining a target audience and difficulty in obtaining sponsorships. But, Erez pointed out, ways of reaching an audience do exist, through a few European television channels that have begun to use art films, and by selling films at international festivals. Ultimately, however, Erez must depend on the advertising sector, producing "little logos, spots, or vignettes for the music channels," for survival.

Ayla Seyhan faced similar handicaps while doing puppet animation for Filmar Advertising and Cultural Films Company in the 1970s. Trained by animator Vedat Ar, with whom she worked for a decade, Seyhan had an unfulfilled goal of producing a message-laden, feature-length puppet animation film. In a July 16, 1998 telephone interview, she recounted her frustration in the 1970s when she had scripts but no sponsors: "One of my scripts was about a world where men became women and vice versa; but I could not implement the project [for lack of money]. In the 1980s, a Japanese film used the same theme and won a grand prize. When I watched the film, I broke down and cried. This could have been my film!"