Turkish movies top box office hits

İZMİR- Anatolia News Agency

Turkish movies in 2012 topped the list of most-watched films in Turkey, Three foreign films did manage to make it onto the list of most-viewed movies of the year, Box Office Turkey’s numbers show.

Turkish movies in 2012 topped the list of most-watched films in Turkey, according to data from the nation’s Box Office. Turkey’s most watched film of 2012 was “Fetih 1453” (Conquest 1453), drawing an audience of 6.5 million people in 2012. The movie hit the silver screen Feb. 16 and stayed in theaters for 41 weeks to reach a revenue total of 55.7 million Turkish Liras.

The film tells the story of the Ottoman conquest of Istanbul during the reign of Sultan Mehmed II. It was also released in the United States, playing in theaters in California and Washington D.C. After enjoying quite a bit of success in Turkey, Europe and Australia the epic movie was then released in New York and New Jersey. The movie, directed by Faruk Aksoy, angered Christians in the German city of Cologne, with the Christian association Via Dolorosa boycotting the film. The association said Turks should be ashamed of what they did to Christians in the past rather than celebrate Istanbul’s conquest.

The movie also angered Greek viewers after it was released there in January. Greek weekly To Proto Thema described the film as “conquest propaganda by the Turks,” in a story published on its website. “The Turkish invaders present themselves as rulers of the world” and “[fail] to show the mass killings of Greeks and the plunder of the land by the Turks,” the piece said.

Coming in second with Turkish movie-goers was Özcan Deniz’s new film, “Evim Sensin” (You Are My Home), which starred Fehriye Evcen. The movie was watched by 2.4 million people and earned 22.5 million liras at the box office.

Written by Ata Demirer and directed by Hakan Akgül, “Berlin Tiger” drew in 1.9 million viewers, coming in third on the list. The movie stayed in theaters for 29 weeks and brought in 18.2 million liras.
In the first three months of the year, Turkish audiences chose to see more Turkish movies in cinemas than foreign films. Seven out of every 10 movie-goers in Turkey saw Turkish films from January to March.

Statistics from Box Office Turkey show that within a 13 week period from January to March 2012, Turkish cinemas screened 61 movies, 13 of which were Turkish films, according to Anatolia news agency. A total of 17.441 million movie tickets were sold, 12.102 million of which were for Turkish movies.

10 most watched films

Among the 10most-watched movies of the year, seven were Turkish films, according to recently revealed Box Office Turkey data.

“Sen Kimsin?” (Who are you?) directed by Ozan Açıktan, Turgut Özakman’s “Diriliş 1915 Çanakkale” (Resurrection 1915 Çanakkale), “Moskova’nın Şifresi Temel” (Moscow’s password Temel) directed by Adem Kılıç, Osman Sınav’s new feature “Uzun Hikaye” (A long story) cap the list of movies watched most this year.

Three foreign films did manage to make it onto the list of most-viewed movies of the year, Box Office Turkey’s numbers show.

“The Ice Age,” the latest installment of the Twilight saga “Breaking dawn Part 2” and “The Dark Knight Rises” from the Batman series were the most-watched foreign movies in Turkey this year.