How to watch the Turkish Chronicles films in order

There are 6 Turkish Chronicles films, about 0.8 hours in total. The first was released in 1964, the latest in 1964. Watching in release order is the safest way to meet the story as audiences did.

Maurice Pialat's Turkish Chronicles.

1. 1

   Bosphore (1964)

   1 Jan 1964

   Short doc by Maurice Pialat. The first film in the series set at Turkey, Bosphore, is also the only one that was shot in color.

2. 2

   Byzance (1964)

   1 Jan 1964 · 11 min

   Byzance uses a text by Stefan Zweig to describe the Ottoman conquest of the city in 1453. Before he turned to feature filmmaking in 1968 with Naked Childhood, Pialat worked on a series of short films, many of them financed by French television. Byzance is one of Pialat’s six Turkish shorts.

3. 3

   Golden Horn (1964)

   1 Jan 1964 · 12 min

   La Corne d'or is mostly concerned with religious ritual, examining the mosque (and former cathedral) discussed in Byzance. As a contrast against Istanbul's status as a center of historical religious conflict, Pialat — drawing here on texts by the French poet Gérard de Nerval — also describes the city as a place of strange ethnic and religious harmony, with representatives of various cultures and r

4. 4

   Istanbul (1964)

   1 Jan 1964

   All of Pialat's Turkish films are uniquely interested in the country — especially Istanbul — as it was, not just as it is at the precise moment that Pialat is filming it. History informs these films in a big way, with the voiceover narration (which incorporates excerpts from various authors) introducing tension between the images of the modern-day city and the descriptions of incidents from its lo

5. 5

   Pehlivan (1964)

   1 Jan 1964 · 13 min

   Pehlivan focuses on a three-day wrestling competition, an ancient tradition that dates back over a thousand years to the time of the Ottoman Empire, originating in the games the soldiers would play to entertain themselves in between battles. Maybe that's why there's more than a hint of homoeroticism in the way the wrestlers oil themselves up with grease, making sure to cover every inch of their bo

6. 6

   Maître Galip (1964)

   1 Jan 1964 · 11 min

   Maître Galip is the most poetic and powerful of Pialat's Turkish Chronicles, using the poems of Nazim Hikmet to accompany a series of evocative images of ordinary working class people in Istanbul. This was the film that Pialat himself claimed was the most complete realization of what he was aiming for with his Turkish documentaries. It's not difficult to see why this was his favorite: here he aban

Order and dates from TMDB collection data. Unreleased entries are added once they get a release date.