Ayten Kuyululu

Born 1930 in Turkey, she came to Australia, directed two films, one of which is a feature, and then returned to Turkey.

David Stratton:
One of the most interesting, and underrated, figures of the decade was a woman filmmaker, Ayten Kuyululu, a Turkish immigrant who arrived in Sydney with her husband, Ilhan, after making documentary films in Sweden. ... A Handful of Dust (1974), in which she played a working class migrant whose love affair with a fellow Turk is shattered when she realises he is an agent from a family which has been carrying on a deadly feud with her family back in Turkey. ... In the leading role, Ms Kuyululu herself is memorable. ... The Golden Cage (1975), also about the Turkish migrant community. In this film, which was photographed by Russell Boyd and on which Phil Noyce worked as assistant director, one of the Turks falls in love with a Sydney girl, who inevitably treats him badly. ... it bears the distinction of being the first feature film made by a woman in Australia since the thirties ... Kuyululu set her heart on making a film of The Battle of Broken Hill;* she nearly succeded in producing what could have been a superb film. By the end of the decade she had returned, disillusioned, to Turkey. David Stratton: 281.

[Re: The Battle of Broken Hill, and for more on Ayten Kuyululu, see David Stratton: 150-152.]

Handful of Dust, A (Ayten Kuyululu, 1973) "middle-aged woman's involvement in a blood vendetta" (Pike & Cooper 1998: 291); 40 min.

Golden Cage, The (Ayten Kuyululu, 1975) prod. Ilhan Kuyululu, wr. Ayten Kuyululu and Ismet Soydan, dp Russell Boyd, ass. dir. Phillip Noyce; Michele Fawdon, Ron Haddrick, llhan Kuyululu, Sayit Memisoglu, Kate Sheil; colour; story of two Turkish men in Australia and related tragic events

Battle of Broken Hill, The (Robin Levinson, 1981) Michael Pate (narrator); telemovie about an incident during WW1 when two Turks shot dead some people on a train and were then in their turn also shot dead; this was to have been made as a feature from a script by Ayten Kuyululu, directed by Donald Crombie, but it did not come about (Stratton: 150-152)

Garry Gillard | New: 21 January, 2013 | Now: 27 April, 2022