Director Senka Domanović Serbia / Croatia 2018
87 Min., OV with English subs
Director Emek Bizim İstanbul Bizim initiative Turkey 2016
48 Min., OV with English subs
Followed by a talk with Kaspar Aebi and Senem Aytaç
Berliner Förderprogramm Künstlerische Forschung @ SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA
Film programme and discussions with a focus on Belarus
Curated by Marina Naprushkina and Agnieszka Kilian
Films with absent protagonists, after the GDR, after 1990
Curated by Anna Zett and Philipp Goll
Curated by Sebahattin Şen
Curated by Necati Sönmez
Fields of action in the environmental crisis
Curated by Sarnt Utamachote, Malve Lippmann, Rosalia Namsai Engchuan and Pia Chakraverti-Würthwein & Eirini Fountedaki
Curated by Özge Calafato
Curated by Eirini Fountedaki, Cornelia Lund & Holger Lund (fluctuating images), Philip Rizk and Shohreh Shakoory
Curated by Kaspar Aebi
Curated by Popo Fan
Curated by Sarnt Utamachote and Rosalia Namsai Engchuan
Curated by Popo Fan, Tobias Hering, Malve Lippmann, Branka Pavlovic, Can Sungu, Sarnt Utamachote and Florian Wüst
Director Aylin Kuryel and Fırat Yücel Turkey 2019
57 min, OV with English subs
Followed by a talk with Aylin Kuryel and Fırat Yücel
Director Furqan Faridi, Ashfaque EJ, Shaheen Ahmed and Vishu Sejwal India 2019
43, OV with English subs
Followed by a talk with Shivramkrishna Patil and Susanne Gupta
Contract Labor and Internationalism in the GDR
Curated by Tobias Hering and Sun-ju Choi
Romani Perspectives in Film
Curated by Hamze Bytyçi
Curated by Amal Ramsis
Curated by Malve Lippmann and Can Sungu
Queer Feminist Rebels
Curated by Pembe Hayat KuirFest / Pink Life QueerFest, Esma Akyel and Esra Özban
Director Afraa Batous Syria, Lebanon 2015
82 min., OV with English subs
Followed by a talk with Lisa Jöris and Afraa Batous
Chinese X Queer X Film
Curated by Popo Fan
The Figure of the Migrant
Curated by Ömer Alkın
Curated by Necati Sönmez
Shifting Narratives
Curated by Florian Wüst
Narratives and Memories of Transnational Families
Curated by Malve Lippmann and Can Sungu
By Esra Özban
Syrian Society and Politics before and after 2011
By Amer Katbeh
Perspectives on Mobility in African Film
By Enoka Ayemba
By Marie Rasper and Hanna Döring
Mobilities between tourism and migration
By Malve Lippmann and Can Sungu
By Florian Wüst
Parent's and Children's Fates in the Context of Labor Migration
By Malve Lippmann and Can Sungu
Children, whose parents work abroad and who are left alone in their home country are referred to as "suitcase children", "commuter children" or "euro orphans". Almost 700,000 children of Turkish migrant workers have spent their childhood between Turkey and Germany, as well as numerous cases from Greece, Italy or Yugoslavia from the period of recruitment agreements. Today, it is rather the Eastern European EU countries, where a large part of the population is working in the West because there is no way to earn enough money in their own country. But also in other countries around the world, this fate of children of labour migrants is a sad reality. In five films and three lectures, the stories of families suffering under the circumstances of labour migration are told.
With kind support of Landesstelle für Entwicklungszusammenarbeit des Landes Berlin (LEZ) and the Aktionsfonds QM Soldiner Strasse in the frame of the programme Zukunftsinitiative Stadtteil, Soziale Stadt – Investition in die Zukunft.
Can Sungu studied film and visual communication design in Istanbul and at the Institute for Art in Context at the Berlin University of the Arts. He has given workshops and seminars in the field of film and published texts on film and migration. As an artist, he participated in numerous exhibitions, including at MMSU Rijeka, Künstlerhaus Vienna and REDCAT Los Angeles. He is co-founder and artistic director of bi‘bak.
Malve Lippmann studied at the State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart and at the Institute for Art in Context (UdK) in Berlin. As a freelance stage designer and artist, she has been internationally responsible for the design of numerous performances, opera- and theatre productions. Since 2010, Malve Lippmann has been working as a curator and cultural manager, leading artistic workshops and seminars and is active in various cultural- and community projects. She is co-founder and artistic director of bi'bak and SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA.
Social Criticism in German-Turkish Migration Film
By Can Sungu
By Branka Pavlovic
OV with English subs
Followed by a talk with Can Sungu
Director Carmen Losmann Germany 2011
90 min., OV with English subs
Director Teodora Ana Mihai Belgium / Romania 2014
88 min., OV with English subs
Georgiana will soon turn 15 and is taking care of her six younger siblings. The seven children are living together in Romania while their mother works in Italy. The oldest sister cooks, cleans and besides tries to find time for studying. In August the mother shall return.
Romania, Germany, France 2013
80 min., OV with English subs
Followed by a talk with Alexandra Gulea
Matei is 11 years old and lives with his grandfather. His parents went to Italy for work. Matei and his grandfather get along well, they are close and respect each other. But when Matei is suspended from school due to a prank, his grandfather reacts roughly. Matei resolutely leaves home after this incident and returns shortly before his grandfather dies. When he is sent to a children's home, his parents try to bring him to Italy, but they have become foreign to Matei.
Alexandra Gulea (born 1970 in Bucharest) studied art in Bucharest and Paris. Afterwards, she studied documentary film at HFF Munich. Her films have been shown in numerous festivals (e.g. International Short Film Days Oberhausen, Cinema du Reel Paris, IDFF Munich) and won several awards.
Director Lukas Moodysson Sweden/ Denmark/ Germany 2009
120 min., OV with English subs
The life of a well-off American family seems almost perfect. But the successful parents work around the clock. Through Gloria, the Filipino nanny, complex global dependencies are revealed. The harmonious family portrait begins to crumble. Director Lukas Moodysson brings together various narrative strands and thus focuses on the responsibility of Western industrial societies.
frontend.im_anschluss_x. Lydia Nagel
Within the series Hidden, Uprooted, Left Behind: Parental and Children’s Fates of Labor Migration, bi’bak invites the editor Lydia Nagel for a reading of her anthology Skype Mama. The reading is followed by discussion moderated by Esra Akkaya.
In eleven stories, which take place somewhere between Ukraine and the west of Europe, this book tells the fate of modern migrant workers. Most of the time it is a simple hardship which pushes them into the offices, kitchens and living rooms of the West. In Ukraine there are about one million families with at least one parent working abroad. Meanwhile, the children are left behind in Ukraine with the grandparents or other relatives. Can modern technology help to maintain the contact between family members? Or do programmes such as Skype fail to substitute physical closeness?
Skype Mama is a cooperative project of the association translit e.V. and the publishing house ist Wydawnyztwo Staroho Lewa, which appeared in 2013 in Ukraine and in Germany. The anthology contains eleven texts of renowned Ukrainian writers on the topic of labour migration and family.
With the support of Aktionsfonds des QM Soldiner Strasse in the frame of the programme Zukunftsinitiative Stadtteil, Soziale Stadt – Investition in die Zukunft.
Lydia Nagel (editor) studied Slavic studies and cultural sciences in Berlin, Belgrade and Moscow. She lives and works as a freelance translator in Berlin and translates from different slavic languages to German, especially contemporary prose and drama, often from Ukrainian writers. She is a founding member of translit e.V.
Director Alvaro Bizzarri Switzerland 1972
50 min., OV with German subs
Followed by a talk with Alvaro Bizzarri
After the death of his wife, the Italian seasonal worker Guiseppe has to take his little son Stefano to Switzerland. However, the children of the seasonal workers are denied residence permits in Switzerland. First, Guiseppe hides his son at home during working hours, but when he is threatened with deportation, he begins to fight for the issue of family reunion and organizes a demonstration to draw attention to the fate of the children who live illegally in Switzerland. The slogan “Every worker has the right to his family! We are human beings, not machines!” on a banner reflects the dramatic situation of the seasonniers which was controversial until the mid 1990s.
Alvaro Bizzarri, born in Italy in 1942, worked in Switzerland for 17 years. His first film Il treno del Sud (1970) was already dealing with the Italian labour migration to Switzerland. Lo Stagionale was released two years later and was shown 1972 on the Berlinale in the interational Forum of New Film. The films was shot on 8 mm and enlarged to 16 mm. Bizzarri took over the post-synchronization of the film.
frontend.im_anschluss_x. Ok-Hee Jeong
Within the film- and event series Hidden, Uprooted, Left Behind - Parent's and Children's Fates bi'baxchange #16 invites the author Ok-Hee Jeong for a reading of her play Five times Mrs. Kim, in her search for home at bi'bak, followed by a discussion.
The author’s parents came to Germany in the 1970s as South Korean labour migrants. She and her brothers stayed behind with their grandmother and only three years later were brought to Germany by their parents. In her play Five times Mrs. Kim, in her search for home, Ok-Hee Jeong uses the stories of the first generation, the foreign adolescents and the second generation to deal with the themes of “homeland, strangeness and identity”.
With the support of Aktionsfonds des QM Soldiner Strasse in the frame of the programme Zukunftsinitiative Stadtteil, Soziale Stadt – Investition in die Zukunft.
Ok-Hee Jeong works as a freelance writer, journalist and filmmaker in Berlin. Her recent articles have appeared in ZEIT Online, taz and bento. She writes about South Korea’s politics and society as well as South Korean migration to Germany. In 2016, her documentary film SEWOL about the parents of the victims of the Sewol boat disaster came to the cinemas in Germany.
Director Anke Kültür
OV
Followed by a talk with Gülcin Wilhelm and Anke Kültür
Kofferkinder – Zurückgelassen in der Türkei (Kofferkinder – Left behind in Turkey)
Anke Kültür, Germany, 2013, 45 min.
In her documentary Kofferkinder – Left behind in Turkey director Anke Kültür speaks to three people from the second generation of Turkish "guest workers" who deal with painful childhood memories. As children, they were left with relatives in Turkey due to the harsh working conditions in Germany and were often separated from their parents for years. In her book Die Pendelkinder der Türkei the author Gülcin Wilhelm gives a voice to the protagonists and describes the influences and effects on family and identity. After the screening Anke Kültür and Gülcin Wilhelm will both present their work on the topic of “suitcase children” and discuss the issue with the audience.
Before the Meal
Vefik Hadzismajlovic, Yugoslavia, 1972, 8 min.
Before the Meal portrays several families in the rural areas of Yugoslavia during their prayers before the meal. But something is missing: the men are missing. They are working as “guest workers” in Germany.
Gülcin Wilhelm, born in Istanbul, has been living in Berlin since 1977. For a long time, she worked for the weekly newspaper Freitag. She works as a writer and freelance journalist in Berlin. 2011 she published the book Generation Koffer. Die Pendelkinder der Türkei.
Anke Kültür is a journalist at Radio Bremen. After visiting the Henri-Nannen school for journalists, she worked for Korea Times as well as for various German media as a freelancer (die Welt, Wiener Standard, Brigitte, ZDF Morgenmagazin and Auslandsjournal, ARD).
Within the series Hidden, Uprooted, Left Behind: Parental and Children’s Fates of Labor Migration, bi’baxchange #17 invites the authors of the collective Daughters & Sons of Gastarbeiters to read about their experiences and memories as "suitcase children" between Germany and Turkey.
Children, who were left behind in their home country or commuted between two countries, because their parents have to work abroad for economic reasons, are referred to as ‘suitcase children’ or ‘commuter children’. Almost 700,000 children of Turkish migrant workers have spent their childhood between the two countries, as well as numerous children from Greece, Italy or Yugoslavia from the period of recruitment agreements.
Daughters and Sons of Gastarbeiters is an open literary project by authors from Berlin, whose parents came to Germany from the villages of Anatolia, Southern Europe, South Korea and the Balkans. As “Gastarbeiter” (guest workers), their mothers and fathers were to support the economic miracle. The daughters and sons are now looking back: in performative readings, they tell their personal stories and revive them with pictures.
With readings by: Didem Yücel, Shlomit Tulgan, Semra Deniz, Ok-Hee Jeong and Çiçek Bacık.
With the support of Aktionsfonds des QM Soldiner Strasse in the frame of the programme Zukunftsinitiative Stadtteil, Soziale Stadt – Investition in die Zukunft.
