REGULATING EXHIBITIONS AT CINEMA-HOUSES IN IMPERIAL ISTANBUL

From its start, the new technology of cinema posed its own tangible and material challenges to entrepreneurs and governments all over the world. These included the use of power sources, the methods of film projection, the physical arrangement of cinema-houses, and other infrastructural measures. The expansion of permanent/seasonal cinema-houses eventually led to the need for standard regulations at exhibition venues. In the Ottoman Empire, after the growth of permanent cinema-houses in the mid-1910s, regulations of exhibitions at cinema-houses introduced obligations, restrictions and a set of rules. The 1916 Draft Regulation and the 1924 Ordinance, both examined in this article, show the Ministry of Interior’s (Dahiliye Nezareti) regulations of the physical surroundings at cinema-houses. These regulations are direct products of the facilitative and the prohibitive mentality of political authorities. The article relies on governmental decrees, consular and trade reports, press reviews and memoirs gathered in archival research, and it explores the regulations and legal measures governing cinema-houses in Istanbul during the early cinema period