11 March 2019 – Kurtuluş Özgen visited CRS to show an early cut of a documentary film that he and a team are working on. The film tells the story of the Kayseri Sümerbank Textile Factory, a large textile plant built in Central Anatolia with Soviet assistance in the 1930s. Graduate students from several universities in Ankara attended, as well as Bilkent IR faculty, and there was a lively discussion afterwards. Together with Yasin Ali Türkeri’s film about the similar plant in Nazilli, this film will offer a wonderful visual account of this important stage in Turkey’s early industrialization. Given the Soviet Union’s role – financial assistance, planning, and the work of Soviet architecture and engineers in both cities – CRS was delighted to be able to screen both of these films over the course of the past few months.
