EPIIC Film Series "Almanya"

Official selection of the Berlin International Film Festival 2011

The experiences of Germany’s migrant workers receive a colourful treatment in this comedy by Turkish-German sisters Yasemin and Nesrin Samdereli. The story flips between two time frames as it examines the lives of three generations of a Turkish family – from patriarch Hüseyin’s arrival in 1964 Germany as the 1,000,001st Gastarbeiter (guest worker) to his present plan to return to Turkey with his children and grandchildren. One of its most intriguing aspects is the way it encompasses the history of guest workers in Germany through a judicious use of archive footage.

With an introduction by Saime Ozcurumez, Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at Bilkent University, Turkey

Professor Ozcurumez conducts research and publishes on migration policy and politics in the European Union, Turkey, and Canada, gender and immigration, irregular immigration, integration and citizenship, media representation of migrants, and comparative politics of deliberative democracy. She is the co-editor of Asylum, International Migration and Statelessness: Concepts, Theories and Politics. She has been part of many international and national collaborative research projects on transcultural memory in Europe, collective identities in Europe, migrants and media representation, and the transformation of governance in EU accession in Turkey in immigration policy.