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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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