Shahada (film)

Movie
Original title	Shahada
Country of production	Germany
Publishing year	2010
length	95 minutes
Age rating	FSK 12
Rod
Director	Burhan Qurbani
script	Burhan Qurbani, ; Ole Giec
production	bittersuess pictures , ; Susa Kusche , ; Robert Gold , ; Uwe Spiller
camera	Yoshi Heimrath
cut	Simon Blasi
occupation
	Maryam Zaree : Maryam; Jerry Hoffmann : Sammi; Carlo Ljubek : Ismail; Marija Škaričić : Leyla; Sergei Moya : Daniel; Vedat Erincin : Vedat; Anne Ratte-Polle : Sarah; Nora Abdel-Maksoud : Renan; Burak Yiğit : Sinan; Yollette Thomas : Amira; Alexandros Gehrckens : Kinay; Gerdy Zint : Rainer;

The episode film Shahada by director Burhan Qurbani is about three young people with a migration background in Germany who are of Islamic faith. The director's graduation film at the Baden-Württemberg Film Academy took part in the 2010 Berlinale competition and numerous other festivals.

action

The film is about three young Muslims in Berlin . During the fasting month of Ramadan , all three get into life crises that put their previous values and belief systems to the test. Maryam, the western-oriented daughter of a liberal Turkish imam , reconsiders her way of life after an abortion and becomes a strict believer, which brings her into conflict with her father. Ismail, a Turkish police officer and family man, cannot cope with an accident with his service weapon and leaves his wife and child to atone for his alleged guilt. The young Nigerian Sammi is finding it increasingly difficult to live with his homosexuality . When he falls in love with a German colleague who also returns his love, Sammi reveals his friend. The paths of these three young people cross in the Berlin mosque of the enlightened Islamic clergyman Vedat, Maryam's father.

Reviews

At the premiere of Burhan Qurbani's film at the Berlinale, German critics expressed themselves cautiously and criticized the style of his staging and the majority of the structure of his characters.

Daniel Kothenschulte ( Frankfurter Rundschau ) called Qurbani's first feature film the most didactic Islamic film since Romuald Karmakar's documentary Hamburg Lessons . He saw the one about the daughter and the imam as the strongest short story. However, the episode film seems "overused" and the chamber-like scenes rarely leave the "tone of tragic solemnity" . Hannah Pilarczyk ( Spiegel Online ) attributed the overload of conflicts to the fact that Shahada is Qurbani's debut feature film. The characters of the main actors Maryam Zaree, Carlo Ljubek and Jeremias Acheampong would "not be allowed a single moment of everyday life" . "All scenes have to serve the story, it should never just be about the character."

Although, according to Andreas Kilb ( Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung ), the three narrative strands touched on a socially highly relevant topic, it would not turn out to be “a whole” film - the characters would appear “wooden” , the dialogues after script seminars. Only Maryam Zaree stands out from the "television-friendly staged monotony" . Jens Balzer ( Berliner Zeitung ) called the dramaturgical construction ambitious, but also complained about the psychology of the characters, which remained “schematic” and only gained “little contour” and “no interest” . The viewer is left perplexed by the conflicts and problems and wonders whether life would be easier without belief and religious systems. To Stefan Reinecke ( the daily newspaper ), too, the characters appeared “squeezed into a corset of conflicts and meanings” , the film “like the cliché of a German problematic film” . According to Reinecke, there is a lack of “the unexpected, the playful, the accidental” , the problems are “developed and pointed like a drawing board” , predictable and the symbolism appears “bleakly clear (it)” .

According to Silvia Horsch, who gave a lecture on the film at a conference of the Protestant Academy Berlin in February 2011 on the subject of "Sometimes only a miracle helps - healing and healing in a film", it is "a drama in which people shown in extreme situations, not a documentary about Muslim life in Germany. " In her commentary, written from a Muslim perspective, she exposes many of the motifs in the film as being more Christian than Muslim in color (e.g. the apocalyptic visions of Maryam) and also questions the references, which are puzzling for an average German viewer without detailed knowledge of Islamic theology z. B. on the five pillars of Islam.

background

The title Shahada alludes to the first pillar of Islam, the Islamic creed, Shahada . In the structure of the film, too, Qurbani is based on the Five Pillars of Islam : prayer (the devotion), the obligation to give alms (the sacrifice), fasting (the self-abandonment), the creed (the decision) and the pilgrimage (the purification) .

The film was produced by bittersuess pictures in coproduction with the Baden-Württemberg Film Academy and the ZDF series Das kleine Fernsehspiel .

Awards

Prize of the Guild of German Film Art Theaters as part of the Berlinale 2010.
Film art award at the Festival of German Films 2010 in the categories Most Original Form of Representation and Most Original Subject
Studio Hamburg Young Talent Award 2010 to Burhan Qurbani (screenplay) and Leif Alexis (production)
First Steps special camera award 2010 to Yoshi Heimrath
German Film and Media Assessment (FBW) Predicate particularly valuable
New Directors Competition Gold Hugo Chicago International Film Festival
Best Acting Award for Maryam Zaree at the Monterrey Film Festival Mexico
Special award for best actress to Maryam Zaree at the 37th Ghent International Film Festival
Nomination for the German Film Prize 2011 in the category Best Supporting Actor (Vedat Erincin)