As a Turkish immigrant to the United States, experimental filmmaker Nazlı Dinçel relates the tedious acts of physically animating words onto each frame of film, or hand processing each roll of film, to the traditional female roles in her Turkish upbringing. Dinçel works primarily in 16mm film, focusing on themes of immigration, desire, and dislocation. In this conversation, Assistant Curator and Bentson Archivist Michael Walsh discusses Untitled (2016) with Dinçel, a moving image work lasting 12 minutes. Untitled is her first work of moving image art shot and edited digitally. Her films have shown at MOMA, Anthology Film Archives, Rotterdam Film Festival, and the Ann Arbor Film Festival, to name a few.
Michael Walsh (MW)
Untitled confronts issues around the male dominated industry of tech support for film and music. Can you tell me a little bit about how the piece came about?
Nazlı Dinçel (ND)
I worked as a technician in my early career to meet people in our community (the experimental film world is very small compared to the art community). I was also doing this so I could see the works free-of-charge and to support myself a little while seeing new works. I had immigrated to the US alone, so this was a tactic to get my foot in the door into the very privileged world of filmmaking. This seemed unachievable for years, a woman of color coming from a middle-class family from Turkey being taken seriously. So, I worked. Being a technician was something that I was good at, but the environment was even more toxic than the experimental film scene, which was already homogenized and not inclusive. I had been coming back to work at this film festival year after year as a tech support, where I was put inside the theatre with a headset, supposedly as a liaison for filmmakers to have access to the booth in case their films were out of focus, or too quiet or too loud for them. I choose to remove the vilest parts of the conversations from being included in Untitled because I did not want it to be seen as some sort of revenge. It shows the larger problem of sexism in the tech world, which in general is still well and alive. I want any women in my position to be able to relate to the piece and feel like they are being heard.
MW
This work is also formally different from the celluloid-based works you are most known for. Can you talk about the deviation from celluloid and why you chose to make this piece in digital?
ND
I never thought of myself as a purely analogue filmmaker. I think the work that is finished on celluloid needs to be on celluloid because it is deeply rooted in the body and it makes sense that the material is physical too, it adds to the work. This piece came out of complete necessity to survive: I needed to make money, I knew I was going to be harassed and gaslighted by the workers at the festival so I decided to make a piece about it while I worked. I assumed it would give me the strength to stay professional. Untitled was shot with an old iPhone in the theatre (this was borrowed because I still owned a flip phone in 2016). Untitled is not about capturing anything aesthetically beautiful. In the way that survival works, I used whatever means I have the easiest access to, to make the video.
MW
And what about the reception of the work, where has it been shown? How has it been received?
ND
When I originally finished the piece, I did not censor the name of the festival or the employees, and there were shots of people on the stage, giving introductions and doing Q&A’s and the names of the people working there. I sent this version to the same festival this was shot in and asked for it to be considered for the upcoming year’s festival. Someone at the organization was furious, I was called creepy for recording people (no acknowledgement of me being abused in my workplace), and I was to be convinced into not sharing the work.
Unfortunately, this intimidation tactic worked for a few years. I had a meeting with some people in the organization and they gently nudged me that they could choose the option to litigate. I informed them that I was planning on removing the images and names of the people at the festival, and I was told that would be acceptable.
I hid Untitled for a few years before starting to include it in screenings of my work; I did not submit it to festivals at the time it was made, except for the originating spot. The video has an arch where it starts with a play for the audience. The viewers do not necessarily know where you are, we watch bootlegged versions of experimental films often re-cropped by me. People walk in front of the camera trying to find their seats, and eventually a child is revealed bored out of his mind playing with his head during one of the films. The viewers finally see that we are in the audience, and the projectionists start to chime in.
I do not have the information or the memory of what some of these films were, but I tried to get consent from all of the filmmakers that I could find. When I was doing a screening at the Vienna Modern in 2019, I showed Untitled with my other analogue work in an early career retrospective. An artist in the audience, Sasha Pirker raised her hand during the Q&A and goes, “I was really shocked because that was my film in the video!” I found her afterwards in the lobby and asked her if it made her feel uncomfortable and that I would be happy to remove it if so. She told me very generously to keep it as is. That was one of the best experiences watching Untitled.
In general, whenever I show the film, often women that are in tech or projection come up and tell me that this has been their professional experience as well. I am happy to hear it, because it is not about a particular person or festival in the end, it is a cultural experience that is widespread in our community that needs to be addressed and brought to light. I usually get a lot of laughs when people watch it as well, which makes me happy.
MW
Untitled provides the viewer a window into a world that is often inaccessible to the general public. What are your reflections on the works reception?
ND
When I showed the video years after it was made at the Images festival. Untitled won me the Marian McMahon award (given to a female filmmaker each year at Images Festival) that sent me to Philip Hoffman’s film farm where I consequently made Instructions on How to Make a Film (2018). Faraz Anoushapour and I were in conversation on stage after the film screened and he brought up the act of signing petitions, that big gestures might not always achieve their desired goals. It is more important for us to be able to criticize our own communities and its problems, before engaging in big gestures. The video is important for this reason because it exposes so many women’s experiences in this world, especially in film projection and festivals.
MW
“Call out culture” is a phrase used often these days. I do not see your video as being a part of this but what would you say to someone who might call your short video as being part of that culture?
ND
I would be okay with someone labeling this work as a part of that (although this was completed a year before the #MeToo movement got widespread public attention with the prosecution of film producer Harvey Weinstein). I feel that people who have an issue with the movement seem to be afraid of their own past behavior towards someone else, or being afraid of something they have done in the past might be catching up with them.
I am interested in accountability and of course humans often relate to other humans by experience, which means there is a wide range and opportunity for anyone to harm someone else, let alone complete predators. I think call out culture is caring if it creates accountability, and we should all participate in it and also recognize our privileges in this awful capitalist power structure that we reside in. Apologizing to a victim is the first step of changing harmful behavior, and allows them to heal faster. We should ideally always engage in accountability, apologize and learn from the experiences when we have harmed someone else based on that power structure.
I think change starts from within the body and I hope the work I make will make me completely transparent because of it.
MW
Sexist conditions in the arts have occurred for centuries now. We are well into the twenty-first century, are you surprised that racism and sexism in the arts still exist?
ND
I am not surprised because of my experiences, but that does not mean normalizing it is acceptable. For People of Color it is especially hard existing in this world because it means that we have already adapted into this capitalist structure that has historically harmed us in order to survive. But I do believe that we have the power to change the system that we are in. And this is only achievable if art can continue to make people uncomfortable. Those lower in a power structure always feel uncomfortable. I am not really interested in shock value, but this is why the works are meant to shake up the viewer a bit. I believe that feeling comfortable and staying silent are similar patterns, which are signifiers that people are unwilling to change. Art is a privilege in this way that one can choose to view works that challenge their own perspective. I value this over beauty, or in the very least I value it as much as aesthetics.
MW
In terms of your broader practice as an experimental filmmaker, your celluloid-based work tends to be more abstract. Do you feel more comfortable working in celluloid? If so why?
ND
I get this question often when I screen my work, about why I choose to work on film versus video and I always tell people that they are asking me the wrong question. I don’t think anyone would go to an opening of an oil painter and ask them why they aren’t using a computer illustrator to make their work. The question is about the process for each piece—they are different mediums that are tools for what is inside my mind.
I cannot physically scratch words onto the surface of video, for example. At this point working with celluloid is something that comes easy to me, but I am not sure if I ever feel comfortable making work of any kind. If I am making work on film, I usually spend hours making sure everything is perfect and so I make no mistakes filming or processing the film in the darkroom. Even in the best circumstances something always goes awry and the problem solving becomes the most interesting part of making a piece. I think this is true for working in any medium.
I am mostly interested in conveying these thoughts via celluloid because I feel that the film is the closest thing to skin.
The medium itself stays close to what I am depicting in the imagery. Film declared “dead” directly in the aftermath of the porn industry switching from using 16mm film to video that decreased the use of analogue film significantly in the film industry. The analogue medium’s closeness and filming a body is completely flipped when we talk about the history of how “intimacy” has been recorded. I guess working with film is not necessary, but I am also not necessarily in the business of making a commercial profit (or pornography) with my work.
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