THREE GENERATIONS OF TURKISH FILMMAKERS IN GERMANY: THREE DIFFERENT NARRATIVES AYÇA TUNÇ In a social environment where Turkish guest workers have been depicted as isolated, incapable victims who could not speak for themselves or for their people, German directors were the first to provide portrayals of immigrants in Germany. Then emerged the second generation of Turkish filmmakers who brought along a breakthrough for Turkish-German cinema. These filmmakers wanted to move beyond the cinema of duty and enjoy their double occupancy by interpreting their inbetweenness as cultural richness. The third generation filmmakers are now no longer the silenced and disadvantaged members of the host society; instead, they have been active agents who are qualified, skilled, educated and thus self-confident. ABSTRACT Turks settled in Germany almost five decades ago and ever since have partaken in political, cultural and social organizations of the host society. Turkish men were invited to Germany as guest workers with the expectation of temporary residency. By the time Turkish immigrants changed their status from guest workers to legal claimers for citizenship as members of a permanently settled community, second and third generations with different cultural, social, educational demands and expectations emerged. These young people were not workers any more. A Turkish middle class, even if very slowly, was emerging. These new generations attended German schools, and pursued higher education in order to have a career in diverse occupational areas such as politics and law like any German citizen. In other words, the “contemporary Turkish diaspora could no longer be simply considered temporary migrant community who lived with the myth of return or passive victims of global capitalism who are alienated by the system. They have rather become permanent settlers, active social agents and decision-makers”.1 They have become important figures in the social and cultural life of Germany, as in the case of Turkish-German filmmakers, who have changed the face of German national cinema, claiming international acknowledgement with their successes. In this context, this article aims to analyse the films of three generations of Turkish filmmakers in Germany with a particular emphasis on the generational differences between them. The Question of Generation In order to explore the generational differences between Turkish filmmakers in Germany, it seems significant to clarify how the term ‘generation’ is understood and used within the scope of this article. In addition, it is necessary to explain how the concept of generation is conceived in relation to the process of memory that functions in specific ways for different generations. This is done to clarify why the same diasporic experience might have different impacts on each generation. Mannheim, in his groundbreaking work Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge, 2 analyzes the issue of generation and acknowledges the importance of biological determinants for the explanation of generation as a sociological phenomenon. In this respect, he underlines the fact that the biological rhythm of birth and death are A. Kaya and F. Kentel, “Euro-Turks: A Bridge or a Breach between Turkey and the European Union?”, (İstanbul Bilgi University Centre for Migration Research, 1952), p. 6. 2 K. Mannheim, Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge, P. Kecskemeti (Ed), (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, 1952) 1 1 significant as to which generation one belongs to, but he also expresses that generation should not be reduced to biological factors. Consequently, Mannheim uses the term generation interchangeably with cohort, by highlighting the shared experiences of individuals who do not need to know each other in person but keep ageing together.3 Approaching generation as a matrix of biological and sociological factors and emphasizing the unifying aspect of common experience proves to be the best option for the purposes of this article since I argue that experiencing the migration process and becoming a diasporic subject has considerable effects on the self-perception and thus the self-expression of an individual. That is to say; Fresh contact plays an important part in the life of the individual when he is forced by events to leave his own social group and enter a new one –when, for example, an adolescent leaves home, or a peasant the countryside for the town, or when an emigrant changes his home, or a social climber his social status or class. It is well known that in all these cases a quite visible and striking transformation of the consciousness of the individual in question takes place: a change, not merely in the content of experience, but in the individual’s mental and spiritual adjustment to it.4 Interlinked with this unifying approach to the issue of generation that takes both biological factors and shared experiences into consideration simultaneously is the perception and the importance of a specific experience for different individuals. This also attests the importance of the concept of ‘fresh contact’. In this respect, key periods of socialization come into prominence. If someone experiences migration or discrimination during their formative childhood years that generally shape the fundamental norms and values for adult life, it is very likely for them to perceive this very same incident of migration or discrimination in a different way compared to an adult person. Therefore, it is possible to argue that fresh contact has an impact on everybody who happens to experience it, but it differs depending on the generation location of the individual as well as other socio-cultural, economic and ideological determinants. The Construction of Memory Memory plays an important role in self-perception, and thus, for the artistic expression of diasporic subjects at stake. Sigrid Weigel explores “the concept and narrative of generation as a symbolic form, that is, as a cultural pattern for constructing history.”5 Working particularly in the context of National Socialism, Weigel highlights the permeability of memories with specific reference to the concept of transgenerational traumatisation as introduced in Freud’s theory of trauma. In this respect, members of one generation, even if they did not experience the traumatic event in question themselves, might still remember; that is to say, they can be influenced by it. In his innovative work on how social memory is conveyed via performative rituals and bodily practices, Paul Connerton highlights the importance of social relations in the construction of one’s personal memory and hence the identity of an individual through a set of narratives about the past of the group that individual For differences between the two terms as well as a general criticism of Mannheim’s theory see J. Pilcher, Age and Generation in Modern Britain, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995) 4 Ibid.; p. 293 5 S. Wiegel, “Generation as a Symbolic Form: On the Genealogical Discourse of Memory”, The Germanic Review, Vol. 77, No. 4, (2002), p. 265 3 2 belongs to.6 If different generations’ relation with their origin as well as with the displacement, that is migration, can be seen in the form of ever extending circles, there is no doubt that the first generation feels the deepest impact as well as having the strongest connection with their roots. This formulation implies a connection that will always remain, creating one of the formative elements of the identity formation of these diasporic subjects. This is not necessarily to say that they are confined within essentialist ethnic categories regardless of their ever-changing social and cultural status in the host society, but to suggest that as long as they want they will have the chance of utilizing their transnational, culturally hybrid, if not biologically, and multilayered identity and diasporic experience. In this respect, for the guest workers who were invited to Germany as locomotive labor power in the 1960s, the motivation behind their decision, the process of migration, the everyday routine of living and working in a foreign country and culture, and the process of settlement are unequivocally a matter of personal memory. For that reason, the first generation’s recollection of departure and fresh contact is supposed to be stronger and less falsified than that of successive generations. Yet how does the process of memory change when it comes to the second generation, who were brought to the host country when they were little or were born in Germany? If they were children when they experienced migration, constituting the 1.5 or half generation as occasionally referred,7 it will be a combination of personal memory and the narratives created by their parents through stories or pictures. Whereas if they were born in the host country and the experience of migration therefore preceded their birth, it will be confined into a ‘received history’ as pointed out by James Young8 or ‘post-memory’ as elaborated by Marianne Hirsch.9 When it comes to the third generation, construction of memory appears to be carried beyond post-memory, “whose connection to the past is not actually mediated by recall but by imaginative investment, projection and creation”10 to the ‘prosthetic memory’ which is seen as a progressive product of commoditization and mass culture that prevail in modern capitalist societies. Despite Alison Landberg’s claim about its potential for radical politics,11 prosthetic memory is essentially mediated and thus, is more likely to create more alienated or distanced connection with one’s own past. Considering the indirect nature of prosthetic memory it becomes more understandable for example why the third generation members of Turkish community in Germany are less interested in the idea of return or do not want to be questioned about their sense of belonging. Three Different Categories In light of the theory of generation in conjunction with the process of memory as discussed so far, the first generation Turkish guest workers in Germany who went through the process of migration, discrimination, and later on, the enforcement and 6 P. Connerton, How Societies Remember, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 36 For examples, see M. Ellis and J. Goodwin-White, “1.5 Generation Internal Migration in the US: Dispersion From States of Immigration?”, International Migration Review, 40:4 (2006), pp. 899-926 and M. Y. Danico, The 1.5 Generation: Becoming Korean American in Hawaii (Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press, 2004) 8 R. Lentin, “Postmemory, Received History and the Return of the Auschwitz Code”, Mittelweg 36, Vol. 4, (2002), p. 4 9 M. Hirsch, “The Generation of Postmemory”, Poetics Today, Vol. 29, No. 1, (2008), pp. 103-126 10 Ibid,; p. 107 11 A. Landberg, “Prosthetic Memory: The Ethics and Politics of Memory in an Age of Mass Culture” in P. Grainge (ed) Memory and Popular Film, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003), pp. 149150 7 3 expectation of integration as adults are likely to interpret the events differently from their successors. It was not an indirect experience for them since they were the firsthand subjects of the ongoing process. Moreover, it is widely known that the first guest workers experienced really hard working and living conditions in Germany, which can be seen as the main reason for not being able to invest any time or energy in the aestheticization of their social conditions. Artistic production can only be possible, states Svetlana Boym, “when the initial hardships are over and the immigrant can afford the luxury of leisurely reflection.”12 In this respect, it is not surprising to see that there were not any filmmakers that belong to the first generation Turkish guest workers in Germany. Tevfik Başer, who is commonly referred as the first generation Turkish filmmaker in Germany was not actually a member of the Turkish community in question since he went to Germany just to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Hamburg for a limited period of time, namely between 1980 and 1987. Besides, the fact that he had gone to England, again in order to study for five years prior to his education in Hamburg indicates his relatively privileged social status compared to that of the guest workers who were mostly from rural Anatolia without even primary education with no qualification and no other choice than going to Germany to earn a living for themselves and their children. Consequently and alongside the main assertion of this article that prioritises filmmaker’s diasporic subjectivity in terms of the distinctiveness of their work, it seems plausible to consider Tevfik Başer as an observer rather than a first generation Turkish filmmaker in Germany. This also allows the films of German filmmakers such as Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Hark Bohm, Dorris Dörrie and Jan Schütte, who made films at the time, to be regarded under the same category of opinionated outsiders who relayed the experiences of guest workers in Germany. When it comes to the second generation Turkish filmmakers, who are also socalled Turkish-Germans implying the different nature and impact of the integration process on them, it can be argued that they will remember, perceive and experience the same incidents from an alternative perspective and probably by means of their parents’ stories, that is, via post-memory. This inevitably shapes their work, leading to alternative artistic expressions. Therefore, within the scope of this study, regardless as to whether they were born or brought up in Germany, Fatih Akın (1973), Yüksel Yavuz (1964), Ayşe Polat (1970), Buket Alakuş (1971), Sinan Akkuş (1971), Thomas Arslan (1962), Sülbiye V. Güner (1973), Kadir Sözen (1964) and Züli Aladağ (1968), who begun making films in the late 1990s with a similar approach despite their disparate individual styles, are chosen as the examples of the second generation diasporic Turkish filmmakers on the basis of the fact that they spent their formative years in the host country rather than their putative country of origin. The latest generation of Turkish filmmakers in Germany constitutes a slightly different category from both the pioneer filmmakers who dealt with the issue of guest workers, and from the second generation that functioned as mediators between the first and the third generations. They are mostly German citizens that were born and raised in Germany, and thus, completed their socialization process in the German education system. Not only does the third generation have the opportunity of total integration, they can also remember the actual migration process mostly via prosthetic memory, determining their particular perception of the events and shaping their selfconsciousness. In this context, the films of Kemal Görgülü, Hakan Savaş Mican (1978), Ayla Göttschlich (1982) and Özgür Yıldırım (1979) are analyzed on the basis 12 S. Boym, The Future of Nostalgia, (New York: Basic Books, 2001), p. 254 4 of changing filmmaking styles and thematic concerns resulting from the specific generation location they hold. Narratives of Victimhood In a social environment in which Turkish guest workers, along with those who were from various countries such as Italy, Spain and Yugoslavia, depicted as isolated, incapable victims who did not own the word so could not speak for themselves or for their people13; German directors provided the first portrayals of immigrants in Germany. Their films were the means of demonstrating the experiences of foreigners in Germany. In this respect, they depicted their protagonists as victims of xenophobia and racism that were prevailing heated social issues in Germany at the time due to ever increasing number of guest workers. Despite his greater attention to the complexities of cultural conflict, generally a similar tendency could be seen in the films of Tevfik Başer, too.14 On the one hand, this shared attitude to addressing the plight of the guest worker can be regarded as a socially critical approach especially when considering that the pertinent films used to focus on the hard working and living conditions of guest workers as well as dealing with the relationships within the family, particularly on the basis of gender differences. Therefore, all three of Başer’s films constitute an organic narrative which is thematically social realistic and stylistically minimalist. However, these films also served to consolidate the stereotypical representation of Turks, leading to a homogenising monologic tendency which lacks dialogue, and thus, cannot enunciate the diversity of diasporic experience. Especially the image of Turkish women, who were doubly alienated, and to some extent still are, portrayed as powerless female figures, deprived of any agency and awaiting to be rescued from their oppressive, patriarchal Turkish families by a German hero, kept circulating.15 In sum, although they were made by different directors with various stylistic approaches, in terms of the construction and representation of a diasporic identity, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974), Yasemin (1988), 40 Squaremetre Germany (1986), Farewell Stranger (1993) and Farewell to False Paradise (1998) seem to contribute to the same discourse and narrative. Revolving around the culture clash theme and victimhood discourse, these films can all be classified as examples of a ‘cinema of duty’ as conceptualised by Cameron Bailey,16 for they structure their narratives around a series of dichotomies, which at the end, intentionally or inadvertently, serve to reproduce, and thus, to solidify existing prejudices and conflicts as to both sides’ perception of each other. Başer’s first two films 40 Squaremeter Germany and Farewell to False Paradise depict women as the victims of Turkish patriarchy and men as the subordinates of German society by virtue of a cinematographic articulation of imprisonment, entrapment and exclusion. In this respect, he employs phobic spaces See J. Berger, Yedinci Adam, Çev. Sungu Çapan, (Ankara: V Yayınları, 1987) for the circumstances under which Turkish guest workers had to work when they first arrived in Germany 14 P. Fachinger, “A New Kind of Creative Energy: Yade Kara’s Selam Berlin and Fatih Akın’s Kurz und Schmerzlos and Gegen die Wand”, German Life and Letters, Vol. 60:2, (2007), p. 255 15 To see how the images/stills from the early films dealing with the Turkish community have been used by the German media over and over again to reinforce a pitiable image of Turkish women, refer to Y. Yıldız, “Turkish Girls, Allah’s Daughters, and the Contemporary German Subject: Itinerary of a Figure”, German Life and Letters, Vol. 62:4 (2009), pp. 465-481 16 S. Malik, “Beyond ‘The Cinema of Duty’? The Pleasures of Hybridity: Black British Film of the 1980s and 1990s” in A. Higson (ed) Dissolving Views: Key Writings on British Cinema, (London; New York: Biggles Ltd, 1996), pp. 203-204 13 5 that are frequently used in accented films and described by Hamid Naficy17 as a way of expressing the reflexive liminal panic and fear felt my these immigrants against a possible threat. Similarly, his last film Farewell Stranger expresses the loneliness and wretched conditions of refugees through creating an agoraphobic sense of identification with space that reinforces the threatening dreadfulness of German landscape and society. 40 Squaremeter Germany is about a Turkish woman, Turna (Özay Fecht), who is forced into a marriage with Dursun (Yaman Okay), a guest worker in Germany from rural Anatolia with strict traditional values, and her entrapment in a 40m² flat in Hamburg. The film opens up with a pan, introducing a very dark and messy room to the audience, which is accompanied by a voice of an insistent alarm clock that is quite symbolic since it immediately recalls waking up early and working. The film also ends with the alarm clock, completing a circular narrative that is considered to be one of the features of accented films. Fear Eats the Soul is similar in this aspect as it also starts and finishes with a dance routine between Ali and Emmi. In terms of narrative characteristics, it also develops on several flashbacks that are Turna’s recollections of her previous life in the village albeit oscillating between longing, nostalgia and unpleasant experiences and emotions. Unaware of what is waiting for her; Turna enjoys her first day of her new life in this new country of hope by decorating and cleaning the house while joyfully crooning. Inadvertently discovering that she is locked in this small flat, she understands that the only Germany she will be able to see is through her window in a cyclic routine although she came here with a lot of hope, particularly with the hope of ending her entrapment in his father’s house where she was treated as a domestic slave. Thus, her dream ends very quickly, reminding us of the renowned Turkish filmmaker Şerif Gören’s unforgettable film Almanya Acı Vatan (1979), which has occupied an important space in Turkish collective memory with its negative depiction of Germany as a land of bitterness that causes one to lose her own self. Turna lives in a world that she can see but cannot experience for herself because of not being allowed to leave her domestic sphere as a gender-coded area for female existence. The audience as well is imprisoned in the same flat due to exclusive indoor shootings. Moreover, a depressing claustrophobic feeling is created by mostly dark and low-key lighting, narrow camera angles and close shot compositions which also serve to support the narrative of confinement and dysphoria that she will experience as a result. In a nutshell, these films could not become subversive texts that challenge the prevailing stereotypes and semantic patterns since they were ethnographic texts made by observers and outsiders: If ethnographic texts are a means by which Europeans represent to themselves their others, autoethnographic texts are those the others construct in response to or in dialogue with those metropolitan representations. Pratt identifies autoethnography as a subversive form of inscription that consciously draws attention to the constructed nature of the master narrative. It is a deconstructive practice that comments on existing stereotypes and rewrites them.18 H. Naficy, “Phobic Spaces and Liminal Panics: Independent Transnational Film Genre” in E. Shohat and R. Stam (Eds) Multiculturalism, Postcoloniality and Transnational Media, (New Brunswick; New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2003), pp. 203-226 18 S. Moorti, “Desperately Seeking an Identity: Diasporic Cinema and the Articulation of Transnational Kinship”, International Journal of Cultural Studies, Vol. 6(3), (2003), p. 363 17 6 In this respect, instead of shedding light on and undermining the constructed nature of these ill-conceived images of immigrants in public discourse, these filmmakers seem to rewrite them without deconstructing. It can be argued, as Kuhn and Özakın does, that “these narratives allow German readers and viewers both to empathize with and feel sorry for the guest worker they are oppressing daily. They thereby permit them to placate their consciences and to feel superior at the same time.”19 The Films That Mark A Period of Transition Before moving on to the particular features of films made by TurkishGermans, it seems necessary to mention the films that can be considered a bridge between the first films produced and those of the second generation. In other words, the films that imply a departure especially from the clichéd and restrictive representations of the guest workers as well as Germans; yet still do not comprehend thoroughly the particular conditions of Turkish-Germans resulting from being neither Turks nor Germans but both simultaneously. As expressed by Deniz Göktürk, indicating the changing social conditions within the host society; Since the reunification in 1989, the international media have been watching Germany cautiously, reporting on the rising level of xenophobia…on NeoNazis burning down Turkish and refugee families in their homes. You would expect the Turks to be the ones who are paralysed by fright whereas Germans take a delight in chasing them. However, there are also some indications of German fright caused by the presence of millions of immigrants from Turkey who have not only introduced döner kebap, but also now wish to erect minarets in German cities.20 In accordance with the shift in the reciprocal roles and positions of Turks and Germans as social agents, the films that were produced in this period reflect ongoing transformation by revealing the multi-layered and heterogeneous structure of Turkish community and its relation with the host society, which ultimately results in breaking with previously dominant misconceptions and misrepresentations. In this context, Berlin in Berlin (1993) directed by Sinan Çetin and co-written by Ümit Ünal, and Lola und Bilidikid (1998) written and directed by Kutluğ Ataman come into prominence as taboo-breaking and converting texts. Berlin in Berlin, a bilingual and bicultural melodrama, tells the story of Thomas (Armin Block), a German engineer, who inadvertently becomes a guest/prisoner of a Turkish family after accidentally killing their eldest son Mehmet (Zafer Ergin). As the title indicates, the family provides a refuge for Thomas whereby he gets a chance of seeing and experiencing an alternative micro-Berlin compared to what he knows. The film opens with random images of people on Berlin streets, emphasizing from the outset that it will be different from the former examples by locating its protagonists within a social context, demonstrating their everyday life within the host society. In addition, one of the protagonists, Dilber, played by Hülya Avşar, who is an iconic actress and singer in Turkey, proves to be rather different from stereotypical Turkish women that the audience previously saw with her fair hair and blue eyes. In the same fashion, the German protagonist of the film, Thomas, does not fit into stereotypical German appearance, either. He could easily be mistaken for a Turk with his dark R. Burns, “The Politics of Cultural Representation: Turkish-German Encounters”, German Politics, 16:3, (2007), p. 374 20 D. Göktürk, “Turkish Delight-German Fright: Migrant Identities in Transtanional Cinemas” in D. Derman, K. Ross and N. Dakovic (eds) Mediated Identites, (Istanbul, Bilgi University Press, 2001) 19 7 complexion, hair and beard. Nonetheless, probably the most important thing the film does in terms of deconstructing stereotypes is to unfold the heterogeneity even within such a small Turkish family. “Three levels of social integration are exhibited among the Turkish men”21 by means of co-existing different generation units within the same family. It is an extended family in which every member has diverse interests and social orientations. In this context, Mürtüz’ sceptical, nationalist and macho behaviours are balanced with the relaxed and flexible attitude of his culturally integrated younger brothers. Similarly, Lola und Bilidikid works against the totalizing, homogenizing representations and descriptions of the Turkish community in Germany by exploring Turkish diasporic identity as a matrix of gender, ethnicity and culture. Like Berlin in Berlin this film is also a co-production between Turkish and German companies and a mixture of genres such as melodrama, comedy and thriller, highlighting the hybrid cultural subjects it deals with. It simply tells the story of Murat (Baki Davrak) who is about to discover his suppressed gay sexuality despite his super macho brother Osman’s (Hasan Ali Mete) close control and surveillance. In brief, both Berlin in Berlin and Lola und Bilidikid pave the way for the second generation Turkish-German filmmakers as the narratives that do not conform to the existing norms, but instead challenge and transform them. Yet, they still cannot be conceived as a sign of a total rupture from the former examples. A Shift towards the Celebration of Differences A real breakthrough for Turkish-German cinema occurs with the advent of the second generation Turkish filmmakers. They want to move beyond the ‘cinema of duty’ and enjoy their ‘double occupancy’22 by seeing their in-betweenness as a cultural richness rather than an obstacle, but also want to express themselves by circulating more realistic and subtle representations of Turks in Germany that would break established stereotypical images. With the second generation filmmakers, one can observe a shift towards ‘pleasures of hybridity’ in Turkish-German cinema.23 Many second generation Turkish-German filmmakers such as Ayhan Salar, Yüksel Yavuz, and Thomas Arslan, state that the negative attitude of German media toward migrants and consequent dissatisfactory portrayals of Turks was one of the reasons that led them to start making their own films. They are the filmmakers who are not only the representatives of Turkish cinema tradition, but also are the acclaimed performers of the contemporary German Cinema, which is frequently compared with the New German Cinema of the late 1960s and 1970s due to its auteurist features and social consciousness, foregrounding their hybridity. In his very minimalist documentary My Father, the Guest Worker (1995), Kurdish descent filmmaker Yüksel Yavuz discovers his roots by visiting his father’s village back home and narrates the migration process that his father went through by leaving his wife and children behind in order to work in Germany. The images of villagers look like postcards from the filmmaker’s country of origin, like still photographs beyond the ordinary perception of space and time. In a similar fashion, A. Fenner, “Turkish Cinema in the New Europe: Visualizing Ethnic Conflict in Sinan Çetin’s Berlin in Berlin”, Camera Obscura, 44, Vol. 15, No. 2, (2000), p. 122 22 T. Elsaesser, European Cinema: Face to Face with Hollywood, (Amesterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 2005) 23 For a further discussion of the concept in the context of Turkish-German diasporic cinema, see D. Göktürk, “Turkish Delight-German Fright: Migrant Identities in Transtanional Cinemas” in D. Derman, K. Ross and N. Dakovic (eds) Mediated Identites, (Istanbul, Bilgi University Press, 2001) 21 8 the director’s father Cemal Yavuz with his wife Güzel sit in front of a wall when a stable camera records their mid-shot images, and talks about his own recollection of the migration, drinking Turkish tea in a traditional Turkish tea glass. According to his recollection, he went to Germany in 1968 to work in a fish factory for a year, and then he was transferred to a shipyard where he served eleven more years and finally returned to Turkey in 1984. The father’s personal account of migration is complemented by the director’s perception of the same process, either conveyed as voice-over or as the director’s commentary during the filming. However, this narrative strategy does not function like the one used in Max von der Grün’s Life in the Promised Land: Guest Worker Portraits, in which, as Arlene Akiko Teraoka argues, the poetic and existential voice of the Turk contradicts the dispassionate and distanced voice of the German commentator who provides concrete information that serves to clarify and contextualize the arbitrarily talking Turk’s narrative.24 In contrast, Yavuz defies any narrative strategies that would characterize the image of a Turkish guest worker by creating a very personalized account, and consequently, this particular documentary can be seen as an example of the combination of personal and post-memories as a tool for the second generation’s understanding of the migration process and their past/origin. In this period; Each film makes an explicit break from the aesthetic and ideological principles of the earlier ‘cinema of duty’ films. They refuse a simple focus on racial and politics and acknowledge other facets of identity. They are multilayered and complex films, not only in terms of narrative, but also in terms of genre, style and film form.25 Correspondingly, the shift in the gender roles within the Turkish community is essentially complemented by a subversive transformation of stereotypes in general. In his short film Lassie (2002) Sinan Akkuş converts many of the existing stereotypical images of the Turks in a self-deprecating and humorous fashion, something which previous examples lacked. It is a comedy that plays with the concept of male Turk as a gun-carrying criminal with his moustache and sexist macho behaviour, reminding us of an old Turkish saying ‘at, avrat, silah’ – horse, woman, gun – as the three signifiers of male virility and authority. “If it is already no longer possible to avoid clichés altogether, one can perhaps attempt to pass beyond them, that is to say, to try and use such images as the point of departure in order gradually to dismantle them in such a way that something else becomes visible.”26 The film is about close friends Altan (Hilmi Sözer), Montana (Adnan Maral) and Boban (Misel Maticević), who are one day mistaken for extras expected to act in a commercial shot by İbo (Denis Moschitto) for his uncle Ahmet’s (Tayfun Bademsoy) döner shop. The two Turkish men with their typical moustaches and macho looks are described as funny, cute, and thus, very likeable, reminding the audience of the constructed nature of cultural stereotypes. Besides, all the Turks in the film, regardless of their age, communicate in German. It also touches upon the issue that Germany has become a country of immigrants by A. A. Teraoka, “Talking Turk: On Narrative Strategies and Cultural Stereotypes”, New German Critique, No. 46, Special Issue on Minorities in German Culture, (1989), p. 107 25 S. Malik, “Beyond ‘The Cinema of Duty’? The Pleasures of Hybridity: Black British Film of the 1980s and 1990s” in A. Higson (ed) Dissolving Views: Key Writings on British Cinema, (London; New York: Biggles Ltd, 1996), pp. 210-211 26 R. Burns, “The Politics of Cultural Representation: Turkish-German Encounters”, German Politics, 16:3, (2007), p. 372 24 9 including French, Italian and Chinese cultural references in the commercial Ibo is making. To sum up, the films of the second generation filmmakers raise awareness about diasporic experience and indicate the possibility of togetherness despite differences. Even though they have very distinctive personal filmmaking styles, these TurkishGerman filmmakers have discernible shared characteristics: an engagement with the politics of identity and representation on the basis of diasporic subject formation; and the appropriation of transnational cinematic practice by blending diverse cinematic traditions of their home and host countries. That is, the films of the second generation Turks seem to be politically conscious. They deal with the problems of displacement and cultural adaptation troubles their parents endured, but at the same time, they discourse on the bilingual and bicultural lifestyle their own generation experience. Since they are the members of the diasporic community they treat, they have intense connection and thus a deeper comprehension; as a result, do not see the first generation guest workers as an object of a project, but instead as their parents with whom they can empathize. In this way, they have changed the stereotypical representation of the first generation Turks by providing profound and multidimensional descriptions. Third Generation Films: When Hometown Becomes A Playground My Sorrowful Village (2005) is the second documentary film of the young filmmaker Kemal Görgülü. Their migration to Germany begun with his grandmother, a literate woman, accepted as a worker in 1969. His grandfather followed her and then his mother and father got married and joined their parents in Germany as workers who later on became an assistant to a doctor and an electronic engineer respectively. Having believed in the importance and necessity of education, they made an extra effort to make sure that their children were educated. As a result, Görgülü graduated from Media Economy in Frankfurt and pursued his education in cinema in France.27 Even just this brief history of the family breaks with many persisting stereotypes by including a female member of a family who initiated the migration, then her descendants who pursued their education despite the hard working conditions and provided their children with a better future. Therefore, it appears not to be a problem of financial redemption or prosperity any more, but of exploring their identities and self-expression for the third generation. The film is about the director’s parents’ village Burunören in central Turkey, forty kilometres from the city of Kayseri and the river Kızılırmak, and the problems that seemingly divide its inhabitants into hostile factions. It begins with very low quality footage of the village and villagers dating back to 1984 accompanied by the traditional Turkish musical instrument saz. It appears to be the director’s own amateur recordings created when he was a child visiting his village for regular summer holidays. It is quite remarkable in terms of underlining the director’s mediated perception of his hometown and home culture; he sees through lenses. My Sorrowful Village is different from My Father, the Guest Worker since it focuses on the inner problems of a village rather than a genealogy of a diasporic family and their diasporic experience in the host country. The director, as the narrator, tells his own story regarding Burunören in a poetic intonation in contrast with the characters’ ordinary and thus factual language: ‘for me Burunören was like a big playground, but Frankfurt T. Özden, “Alamancı Yönetmenler Kimlikten Çekiyor”, Aksiyon, Vol. 655, (2007), http://www.aksiyon.com.tr/yazarDetay.do?haberno=17884, Accessed on 25.07.2008 27 10 is my home’, which can be considered as romantic on the basis of the relationship with the home country and homeland culture. Furthermore, combining pastoral images depicting the village life with the images of the working machines and cranes, the film is far from glorifying the homeland, but it can readily be construed as an exoticising narrative. Another representative of third generation Turkish filmmakers is Hakan Savaş Mican, who was born in Berlin in 1978 to a guest worker family from the Black Sea region of Turkey. In his films, the question of identity seems to come into prominence. He actually describes his identity as a mutant formation that is shaped by a feeling of not belonging to anywhere since he had to live in the two countries simultaneously throughout his childhood and adolescence. In addition, he argues that his parents and he represent two opposite poles on the basis of cultural affiliations and he believes this is reflected in his films as all of the characters would like to belong somewhere.28 In accordance with this, in his short film Fremd-Foreign (2007), which can be read as the last film of a trilogy about mother-son relations, he focuses on generational differences between a completely integrated, and in fact alienated, young Turkish-German man, Adem (İsmail Şahin) and his mother, Meryem (Sema Poyraz). The film begins with a static camera showing a white room with an open window, and then a young man enters the frame and leaves a luggage in the middle of the room when a very short and sharp rhythm performed with a tabor is heard. The sound functions as an indication of an oriental intruder who invades his isolated life. This intruder is his mother from Turkey on her regular visit. After the introduction, the film is divided into six little episodes. The first one, which is named ‘A Thorn in Adem’s Finger’, serves to crystallize the disconnectedness between the two by using the thorn as a metaphor of unwanted/unexpected and thus disturbing existence of the mother. She is a Western-looking and a lovely middle-aged woman who keeps talking in Turkish even though her son seems totally uninterested. He speaks only once in the entire sequence and it is in German, underlining the difference and dissidence between them. The last episode is called ‘Adem Pulls the Thorn Out of His Finger’, referring to the departure of Meryem. She leaves, but in the last scene her slippers are seen left in front of the room she slept during her stay. That is to say, even if they are totally invisible, his roots will continue to be part of Adem’s identity. In conclusion, even though it is too early to make any decisive comments since these filmmakers are at the beginning of their careers, one can still identify some prominent themes and aesthetic strategies in the work of third generation filmmakers. They are no longer the silenced and disadvantaged members of the host society; instead, they are active agents who are qualified, skilled, educated and thus self-confident. Moreover, they seem to have a more relaxed attitude concerning their images in the eyes of the viewer owing to the second generation Turkish-German artists and writers in general and filmmakers in particular, who consciously worked hard in order to convert German stereotypes of Turkish men and women. In addition, the established achievements of the second generation filmmakers facilitate the third generation’s commencement on their filmmaking career especially in terms of raising funds by providing them with an already credible image and a working environment/industry. They also help each other both financially and intellectually as it is seen in the case of Chiko (2008) or Foreign (2007), in which the directors thank the second generation filmmakers Bülent Akıncı and Züli Aladağ, indicating the solidarity among them. Besides, it can be observed that they do not have a problem 28 F. Yücel, “Hakan S. Mican’ın Yaban’ı”, Altyazı, Vol. 73, (2009), p. 68 11 with the integration into the host society; it appears to have been achieved, so is taken-for-granted. Therefore, they feel German probably more than they feel Turkish, and in this respect, they approach/see Turkey as a land of a lost past; a land to discover; a land to exhaust for characters and stories with the eyes of an explorer. They rather try to discover their multiple belongings, and yet, while doing so they deal with their characters and stories with a particular emphasis of diversified and complex structure of Turkish identity. 12