Turkish cinema or
Yesilçam refers to the Turkish film art and industry. It is an important part of
Turkish culture, and has flourished over the years, delivering entertainment to audiences in
Turkey, expatriates across
Europe, and more recently prospering in the
Arab world and in rare cases, the
United States. The first movie exhibited in the
Ottoman Empire was the
Lumiere Brothers' 1895 film,
L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat, which was shown in
Istanbul in 1896. The first Turkish-made film was a documentary entitled
Ayastefanos'taki Rus Abidesinin Yikilisi (
Demolition of the Russian Monument at San Stefano), directed by
Fuat Uzkinay and completed in 1914. The first narrative film,
Sedat Simavi's
The Spy, was released in 1917. Turkey's first sound film was shown in 1931.