40 sqm Germany

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Movie
Original title 40 sqm Germany
Country of production Germany
original language German , Turkish
Publishing year 1985
length 80 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Tevfik Baser
script Tevfik Baser
production Tevfik Başer, Studio Hamburg
music Claus Bantzer
camera İzzet Akay
cut Renate Merck
occupation

40 qm Deutschland is a German feature film by Tevfik Başer from 1985 . The work, written and co-produced by the director, is the first widely acclaimed film by a director of Turkish origin in Germany. It has received important prizes and is considered one of the most important German films of 1986.

action

The window of a Hamburg apartment in an old building is Turna's only access to the outside world

40 sqm Germany tells the story of the Turkish migrant worker Dursun and his wife Turna. For Dursun, the hopes for a better life in Germany have not been fulfilled. He leads a depressing life in an apartment in the back of the building in Hamburg. When his young wife follows him to Germany, Dursun tries to lead a life with her according to the traditions of his fathers and thus to preserve a piece of his lost homeland. Since he perceives his new environment as immoral and therefore hostile, he largely isolates his wife from this environment. As a result, life in Germany is a nightmarish scenario for Turna: the 40 square meters of Dursun's dreary old Hamburg apartment remain everything that she gets to see of the country. Turna threatens to perish from her life in Hamburg, completely unnoticed by Dursun. It was only when Dursun himself died that the young woman, whose struggle for liberation had already begun, stepped out of the apartment and was confronted with the German reality, which until then had remained completely alien to her.

background

40 qm Deutschland was premiered on July 31, 1986.

The film, which was made in 1985, took 21 days to shoot, and post-production took another seven weeks. With total production costs of only DM 450,000 (≈ approx. € 230,000), Başers Film is a low-budget production . The only setting is a 40 square meter old apartment in Hamburg .

Başer, who pursued a long-cherished vision with the realization of 40 square meters in Germany , took care of the production, script and direction as well as the selection of the location, the composition of the crew, as well as the search for a rental almost alone. He proceeded extremely meticulously: The well-known German church musician Claus Bantzer was won over to write the film music , the camera ultimately led İzzet Akay , who had previously worked with the deceased Yilmaz Güney and the leading actress Özay Fecht was already 40 square meters in Germany Known jazz singer.

Six months before the premiere, the director described the motives for his committed film project to the Frankfurter Rundschau as follows:

I want to try to make clear something of the thoughts and feelings of people from a culture that is foreign to Germans, of which I have some criticism, but which I understand from their tradition. I want the Germans to get to know us, because the unknown scares us and creates hatred, as can be seen in the riots against the Turks. That is why I am using a special case to describe the situation of guest workers in the Federal Republic of Germany without leaving home and apartment even once in my film .

Reviews

Hans-Dieter Seidel from the FAZ pointed out that 40 square meters of Germany point “significantly beyond the process described”: It is about “an existential drama that could take place in any cultural area under different circumstances”.

The oppressive film was widely praised in later film dictionaries. In the Chronicle of the Film (1994), the German Institute for Film Studies calls it a "clear (...) study about the life of guest workers, about the desperation of people who have lost their social and cultural ties through their stay in foreign countries". The Lexicon of International Films (1995) sees it as “a harrowing psychogram of emotional distress and despair”. Başer's sensitive staging and the acting performances of Özay Fecht and Yaman Okay as Turna and Dursun, as well as Demir Gökgöl , Mustafa Gülpınar and Grit Mackentanz are particularly emphasized .

effect

Başer's film has been shown successfully at major film festivals, e. For example, he was awarded the “Silver Leopard” at the Locarno International Film Festival and won the “Best Directing Debut” award at the Rotterdam International Film Festival . At the Cannes Film Festival it was shown during the “Week of Criticism”. At the German Film Prize , the film received a nomination as “best film” and was awarded in other categories, for example Özay Fecht was awarded the German Film Prize for “ best actress ”.

Others

The film was shown in East German cinemas in 1988 and was shown on television in both German states. It was also released as a VHS videotape.

40 square meters Germany is often seen as the starting point for a so-called German-Turkish cinema . However, the actress, director and screenwriter Sema Poyraz had already made a 90-minute German fiction film with Gölge (1980) five years earlier, completely unnoticed by the German public, which already had all the characteristics of the genre.

Awards

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 40 sqm Germany. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed October 10, 2016 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used