Inventur - Metzstraße 11 / Inventory - Metzstraße 11
Želimir Žilnik, FRG 1975, 9 min.

Abschied / Farewell
Želimir Žilnik FRG 1975, 9 min.

Unter Denkmalschutz / Under Heritage Protection
Želimir Žilnik, FRG 1975, 11 min.

Gastarbeiter
Bogdan Žižić, FRG / Yugoslavia, 1977, 17 min.

Specijalni vlakovi / Special Trains 
Krsto Papić, Yugoslavia 1972, 12 min.

Na Objedu / At Lunch
Vefik Hadžismajlović, Yugoslavia 1972, 9 min.

Halo München / Hello München
Krsto Papić, Yugoslavia 1967, 13 min.

Dernek / Party 
Zoran Tadić, Yugoslavia 1975, 12 min.

This short film program brings together documentary works from the early and mid-1970s made by Yugoslav directors associated with the Zagreb and Belgrade film clubs and the documentary film school in Sarajevo. From a range of perspectives, the films not only address the problematic selection and recruitment processes of so-called guest workers, but their everyday living conditions in Germany and the lives of their relatives who remained. The highlight of the program will be two films by Želimir Žilnik, long thought to have been lost, which were recently found in the archives of the Documentation Center and Museum of Migration in Germany (DOMiD). Indeed, the very fact that the two films were not adequately preserved – in neither a German nor a Yugoslav national film archive – raises many questions regarding hegemonic film historiography and archiving, and their relationship to themes of migration in both countries. (BG)

Book tickets

Borjana Gaković is a film and media scholar. She writes and works as a lecturer in the field of film and cinema culture, and as a curator of mostly historical cinema programs, often with reference to feminisms in film history.

Želimir Žilnik (born in Niš in 1942; currently living and working in Novi Sad) has written and directed numerous feature and documentary films which have reaped many awards at domestic and international film festivals. Žilnik is renowned as an initiator of the “docudrama” genre.

Guten Tag (Episode 26)
FDR 196?, 15 min. german OV, 16mm

Tipps für den Alltag II, Ausländische Arbeitnehmer im Industriebetrieb
FDR 196?, 12 min. OV with german subtitles, 16mm

Viel Glück in Deutschland (Episode 2)
Thilo Philipp / Uwe Krauss, FDR 197?, 15 min. german OV, 16mm

Zu Gast in unserem Land: Kemal
Herbert Ballmann, FDR 1977, 50 min. german OV

“I am a stranger here,” “I am a foreigner,” “I don't speak German” are all phrases that can be learned in the Goethe Institute’s elaborately produced 26-part language course series, Guten Tag (Good Day). With a great deal of artistic imagination, scenes around “Language, Culture, Germany” are staged and slowly intoned in an effort to bring the newly arrived closer. Viel Glück in Deutschland (Good Luck in Germany), on the other hand, prepares employees for everyday life in the workplace with vocabulary such as “time card,” “personnel office” and “the foreman is waiting”. In Tipps für den Alltag (Everyday Tips), the portrayal of what is characterized as typically German and represented as the ideal norm also has a comic effect, while the depictions of foreign workers can certainly be perceived as problematic. Similar patterns can be found in the educational film series produced by the Federal Agency for Civic Education, Zu Gast in unserem Land (A Guest in our Country). Here, younger generations belonging to the social majority are prepared for confrontations with the so-called “guests”. Following the screening, there will be a discussion in which we dissect the persistent stereotypes unreflectively projected onto later generations of people with an immigration history and the racist behaviors that are subsequently internalized. (ML)

Book tickets

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.

Cem Kaya is a documentary filmmaker from Berlin with a quirky interest in found footage. Coming from the field of cultural studies, his films combines humorous storytelling with deep background knowledge. Remake, Remix, Rip-Off was screened at some of the most important international film festivals, including Berlinale and  Locarno Film Festival.

Metin and Anne are the same age. Anne moves into the front apartment block and meets Metin, who lives in the back apartment block. They don't speak the same language, but through curiosity they quickly become familiar to one another. Together, Metin and Anne explore Berlin. In the process, they notice that the people around them have a hard time with their friendship. They have to stand up to prejudice and resentment. A bilingual film by Thomas Draeger, Metin is aimed equally at adults and children. (ML)

This screening is part of SİNEMANINO, the children's program of SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA. Presented by Martin Ganguly. Suitable for adults and children 8 years and older.

Book tickets

Dr. Martin Ganguly is a university lecturer in teacher training (HVD/TU Berlin) as well as an author and teacher in both (film) pedagogy and artistic fields in Germany and abroad. As a film educator he leads the school project in the Generation section of the Berlin International Film Festival. In addition to his teaching degree, he is a doctor of educational science and completed studies in directing and acting at the Max Reinhardt Seminar in Vienna.

Nurse Kim’s Message Home 
FRG 197?, 16 min. OV

Ekmek Parası - Geld fürs Brot 
Serap Berrakkarasu / Gisela Tuchtenhagen, Deutschland 1994, 86 min. OV with english subtitles

In Ekmek Parası - Geld fürs Brot (Money for Bread), the money doesn't stink, but the fish does. A smell that is difficult to wash off. Women from Turkey and Mecklenburg work in the fish factory in Lübeck. Here, the camera acts as accomplice: Serap Berrakkarasu and cinematographer Gisela Tuchtenhagen establish a closeness to the workers who candidly describe (in Turkish) the working conditions at the factory, answering questions about life, death and dreams. The supporting film, Nurse Kim's Message Home, produced by Hoechst AG, is accompanied by a paternalistic voiceover and follows a group of Korean nurses working in Frankfurt after the recruitment agreement with South Korea in 1971. (MB)

Book tickets

Madeleine Bernstorff lives in Berlin, creates film programs (often in collaboration) and works as a teacher and author, e.g. of Transnationales Lernen an der dffb. In 2016/2017 she supervised the production of 23 short video spots Unraveling the NSU Complex! with the SPOTS group.

Sun-Ju Choi is an author and filmmaker. She studied literature at the University of Cologne and screenwriting at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin. She is a founding member of korientation e.V. - Network for Asian-German Perspectives and a board member of ndo (neue deutsche organisationen). She currently works as deputy executive director of the Neue deutsche Medienmacher*innen e.V..

Sie dienen Allah und den Deutschen
Michael Brückner / Peter Heller, BRD 1973, 25 min. OF, 16mm 

Die industrielle Reservearmee
Helma Sanders-Brahms, BRD 1971, 36 min., OF 

Ich war Fremd
Fritz Fischer / Lado Pavlik, BRD 1970, 5 min., OF, 16mm

Dokumentarisch = Dokument?
Fritz Fischer / Lado Pavlik, BRD 1974, 17 min. OF, 16mm

Why does a Hessian iron foundry build a mosque for its Muslim workers? Sie dienen Allah und den Deutschen (They Serve Allah and the Germans) shows how one company management tries to use religion as an instrument of conformity. The film’s commitment to better working conditions appears as an authoritative voiceover. Dokumentarisch = Dokument (?) (Documentary = Document (?)) shows how such a narrative is constructed cinematically. Two reports on the housing situation of Turkish workers are juxtaposed, both cut from the same raw material. Like recorded evidence, the film strings together circumstantial proof for two completely different claims. In Die industrielle Reservearmee (The Industrial Reserve Army), skepticism gives way to argumentative conviction. Armed with quotations from Marx and Engels, the film agitates for a class struggle that unites German and foreign workers. The title of the film hails from Marxist economic theory and refers to the societal “class below the lower class” that can be called upon when workers refuse to work; or, to state it more drastically: “For the company owner, a guest worker is more convenient than a slave. He can replace him at any time, with the same dependence.”  Finally, Ich war fremd (I Was a Stranger) avoids a didactic stance entirely as rapidly edited scenes of a construction site are interrupted by feverish image-sound montages all ending in a microdrama. (KA)

Book tickets

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.

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.

Antonio - Wo ist er zu Hause?
Hans Rolf Strobel, BRD 1974, 17 min. OF, 16mm

Mein Vater, der Gastarbeiter 
Yüksel Yavuz, Deutschland 1995, 53 min. OmdU

In Antonio - Wo ist er zu Hause (Where is he at Home?), 13-year-old Antonio from southern Italy acts as moderator and translator, guiding the audience through the economic living, working and family conditions both here and there. Mein Vater, der Gastarbeiter (My Father, the Guest Worker) is about Yüksel Yavuz's family history, which expands to become a social history: His father left in 1968 and worked for 16 years at a Hamburg shipyard; his mother "took care of the running of everyday life" in the Kurdish part of Turkey. “I saw that my father worked like a maniac to leave traces that would compensate for the traces on his body.” We watch on as tanks belonging to the Turkish army race through the barren mountain landscape (the Hamburg shipyard didn't give permission to film). (MB)

Book tickets

Madeleine Bernstorff lives in Berlin, creates film programs (often in collaboration) and works as a teacher and author, e.g. of Transnationales Lernen an der dffb. In 2016/2017 she supervised the production of 23 short video spots Unraveling the NSU Complex! with the SPOTS group.

Yüksel Yavuz was born in Karakoçan in eastern Turkey in 1964 and has been living in Germany since 1980. He studied sociology and economics in Hamburg. With My Father, The Guest Worker, Yavuz presented his first cinematic work, which won several prizes. Other films, which have also won several awards, include: Aprilkinder (1998), Kleine Freiheit (2003), Close up – Kurdistan (2007), Longing for Istanbul (2010) Hêvî (2012), AMED – Memory of a City (2016).

After his brother, a guest worker in Germany, suffers a life-threatening accident, Paco travels from Spain to Cologne. Did a racially motivated attack lie behind it? As a discourse film of the WDR (Westdeutscher Rundfunk), which addresses current topics such as racism, labor migration and colonial exploitation, Der Unfall (The Accident) still has a powerful impact today. The event will address the film's topicality and aesthetics, asking: What did we know back then and what are we (still not) learning about migration? (ÖA)

Book tickets

Ömer Alkın is a media & cultural studies scholar and filmmaker. His research focuses on migration, film and racism. His writings have appeared in numerous books and journals. Most recently, “Die visuelle Kultur der Migration. Geschichte, Ästhetik und Polyzentrierung des Migrationskinos” (2020, transcript). He lives and works in the Ruhr region and in Cologne.

Bağrıyanık Ömer ve Güzel Zeynep
Yücel Çakmaklı, Turkey 1978, 30 min. OmdU / OV with English subtitles

Geyikler, Annem ve Almanya
Tuncer Baytok, Turkey 1987, 71 min. OmdU / OV with English subtitles

Two figures are particularly central to migration: those who return home and those who remain at home. Despite this fact, both are often forgotten in discussions about migration. With two films found in the archive of the Turkish state broadcaster TRT and shown for the first time in Germany, this film evening is dedicated to these two often neglected figures. In Bağrıyanık Ömer ile Güzel Zeynep, Ömer, a returned migrant worker, confronts his wife Zeynep about adultery in front of her lover: Poetically he shares the memories of his time abroad. The result is an idiosyncratic view of 1970s Munich from the perspective of an immigrant worker whose self-image has been wounded. In Geyikler, Annem ve Almanya, Nigar recapitulates her childhood in Turkey during the absence of her migrant father. Memories of life in the village, the move to Istanbul, longings for the father's indefinite return, and the mother's sudden departure for Germany reveal the effects of migration on a child’s life. (ÖA)

In cooperation with Philipps-Universität Marburg, funded by the DFG (German Research Foundation).

Book tickets

Ömer Alkın is a media & cultural studies scholar and filmmaker. His research focuses on migration, film and racism. His writings have appeared in numerous books and journals. Most recently, “Die visuelle Kultur der Migration. Geschichte, Ästhetik und Polyzentrierung des Migrationskinos” (2020, transcript). He lives and works in the Ruhr region and in Cologne.