Transit
With actors Frank Rogowski and Paul Beer. Premier German auteur Christian Petzold’s adaptation of the 1942 Anna Seghers’s novel follows Georg (Rogowski), a young Jewish man who flees the Nazis to France with the identity and papers of a dead author, only to meet and fall in love a woman searching for her missing husband […]
Zuhaus unter Fremden
With actors Herbert Grönemeyer, Aysun Bademsoy and Meray Ülgen. In this early made-for-TV engagement with migration and multiculturalism, a young Turkish-German woman, Ayshe (Bademsoy), meets and falls in love with Bernd (Grönemeyer), but is at odds with her father (Ülgen) over not just her love for a German man but over her preference for Germany […]
Yasemin
With actors Ayse Romey, Uwe Bohm, Sener Sen, Ilhan Emerli Jan (Bohm) joins a judo class and, on a bet, pursues his Turkish-German classmate Yasemin (Romey) romantically. Yasemin is uninterested and has her own problems, first and foremost the strict opposition of her father Yunuf (Sen) to her wishes to go to college. As her […]
Wolfsburg
With actors Benno Fürmann and Nina Hoss. Smug, reckless car salesman Phillip Gerber (Fürmann) runs over a young boy in a tragic moment of carelessness, and flees the scene. He follows the boy’s condition until learning of his passing, but doesn’t tell the boy’s grieving and vengeful mother, Laura Reiser (Hoss). Links: IMDB, YouTube (Trailer) […]
Wir sitzen im Süden (Based Down South)
color, Germany/Turkey, Martina Priessner, 88 Min, 2010 Four Turkish-Germans born who grew up in Germany and now live in Istanbul share their different stories and divergent paths that all brought them back to their ancestral homeland: one through deportation, two forced by their parents, and only one, Ciğdem, who came to Turkey of his own […]
Wir haben vergessen zurückzukehren (We Forgot to Turn Back)
This made-for-TV documentary film for the series Denk ich an Deutschland (“I think of Germany”) follows Turkish-German filmmaker Fatih Akin and his parents (Mustafa Enver Akin and Cem Akin), as they visit the village the Akin family comes from. The elder Akins were part of a wave of so-called “Gastarbeiter” (“guest workers) who were recruited by the West German […]
Von glücklichen Schafen (Of Happy Sheep)
With actors Narges Rashidi, Marlene Metternich, Benno Fürmann, and Jascha Baum. Young Can (Baum) lives with his sister Segvi (Metternich) and his mother Elmas (Rashidi). Struggling to make ends meet, Elmas works in a brothel but keeps it from her son. When Can finds out, it drives him and his mother apart, and throws their […]
Türkisch für Anfänger (Turkish for Beginners)
With actors Josefine Preuß, Elyas M’Barek, Anna Stieblich, and Adnan Maral. Based on, but not occurring in the same timeline as, the hit German culture-clash sitcom of the same name, “Türkisch für Anfänger” finds Lena Schneider (Preuß) and Cem Öztürk (M’Barek) stuck together on an island after their plane crashes. Like in the series, however, […]
The Green Wave
Ali Samadi Ahadi’s documentary tells the story of Iran’s Green movement and the brutal repression of protests after the disputed presidential elections of 2009. Links: IMDB, YouTube (Trailer) Genre(s): Documentary
The Cut
With actors Tahar Rahim, Hindi Zahra, Makram Khoury, and Simon Akbarian. In Fatih Akin’s monumental epic chronicling one man’s experience of the Armenian genocide and its aftermath, Nazaret Manoogian (Rahim) is spared from execution by an Ottoman soldier. Nazaret henceforth ceases to speak, and spends the rest of his life trying to find his twin […]