Feo Aladag’s “When We Leave”
Originally Die Fremde, Feo Aladag’s Turkish-German drama When We Leave won the Founders Award for Best Narrative Feature at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival in New York City. The star of the film, Sibel Kekilli, who won an award for her role in Fatih Akin’s Head-On, also won a Founders Award for Best Actress in […]
Fatih Akin’s Soul Kitchen
Unlike Head On and The Edge of Heaven, Fatih Akin’s most recent film Soul Kitchen is a comedy. The film focuses on Zinos, a restaurant owner who is forced to employ a drunken chef played by Head On‘s Birol Unel. The chef insists on cooking “real” food, and while this appeals to Zinos he loses […]
Homeland, Bittersweet Homeland
“Heimat, bittersuesse Heimat” (or “Homeland, Bittersweet Homeland”) is an all-black satirical theatre production that showcases real-life experiences of minorities living in a prejudiced but politically-correct society. The sketches also address cultural identity and its fluidity when the actors move smoothly from a German waltz to an African freestyle dance. While the theater group is based in […]
culturebase.net
culturebase.net is a great resource to quickly find reliable information on international artists such as Sevgi Emine Ozdamar or Ersa Ersen. The artist profiles available on this website include their biographies, themes, genres, and lists their body of work. If the artist works with visual media, then samples of their work may be posted to […]
Skinhead Converts to Judaism
Pawel was a neo-Nazi skinhead until his skinhead girlfriend found out that both she and he had Jewish roots. Now they are Orthodox Jews raising their two children in a Jewish home in Poland. In Dan Bilefsky’s article “Changing Face in Poland: Skinhead Puts on Skullcap”, Pawel’s reaction reminds me of Lois’ reaction in the […]
Halal Burgers: Discrimination Against Non-Muslims?
French mayor René Vandierendonck protested against his local Quick outlet by filing charges against the fast food chain, claiming that its decision to replace its bacon burgers with halal burgers is prejudicial religious catering that discriminates against non-Muslim customers. Though he says “yes to diversity,” he also says “no to exclusion,” emphasizing that “[Quick] goes too […]
Immigration and Economy in Europe
In Stephan Theil’s “The Incredible Shrinking Continent,” he writes that though immigrants are being scapegoated for the economic crises in Europe they are actually necessary for future economic growth. Immigration is inevitable, so Europe should accept the influx and use it to their own economic advantage. This article echoed some of the sentiments we’ve read […]
Turks face integration challenges in Germany
This article focuses on the difficulty Turkish Germans have when trying to claim a German identity. It brings up problems in defining German identity, where one woman appears to have been well-integrated as a child — dressing like other German girls and refraining from wearing the head scarf — but is ultimately unable to have […]