Hawzah News Agency - (Istanbul - Turkey) - Making lifelong efforts to showcase the national and local identity of Turkish cinema with impressive filmography, Mesut Uçakan is among the 2019 Presidential Culture and Arts Grand Awards recipients.

Attempts for an Islamic cinema were started by the National Turkish Students Union (MTTB) in the early 1970s. MTTB's Cinema Club was the cradle of the National Cinema approach, which is sometimes referred to as "white cinema" or "Islamic/Islamist cinema." Yücel Çakmaklı, a mature cinema director who made films with social criticism based on religious themes, acted as the mentor for the young cinema lovers such as Salih Diriklik and Mesut Uçakan, who became prominent filmmakers at the MTTB.

The MTTB Cinema Club aimed to help the young students of middle and high schools in Anatolia gain access to the cinema. They showed carefully chosen movies, including dramas and documentaries, on certain days of the week, in addition to the seminars and courses held for the education of the young members of the union. Perhaps the most famous cinema event of the MTTB Cinema Club was the "National Cinema Panel," which was held in 1973 with the participation of the greatest filmmakers of Turkey including Metin Erksan, Halit Refiğ, Duygu Sağıroğlu and Yücel Çakmaklı. The panel session lasted four and a half hours and the discussions were later published in a book by the MTTB.