Year of release: 2005
Culture-clash comedy which centres on Bruce Lee fan and young Turkish hip-hopper Ibo, who lives in Hamburg and dreams of making the first-ever German kung-fu film.
Filed under: Fathers | Inter-ethnic romance | Mothers | Turkish German | Wedding / Marriage
Year of release: 2012
Kuma (courtesy of Wega Film)
When Ayşe celebrates her wedding almost everyone in her Turkish village believes her to have married Hasan who is just a few years her senior. But in fact, she is sent to Vienna as Hasan’s father Mustafa’s second wife. She arrives in Austria and receives a mixed welcome from her new family. At first, Mustafa’s children, some of whom are older than Ayşe, turn their back on the girl. Only Fatma, Mustafa’s wife of many years who is now dying of cancer, seems genuinely pleased: now she can be assured of a good successor to tend to her husband, to whom she has been a loyal and obedient Muslim wife.
A special friendship evolves between the two different women but this relationship is soon put to the test when the family has to face a stroke of fate.
Director Umut Dag’s description of the complex microcosm of a Turkish family living in Vienna displays a great deal of sensitivity in a work that explores the relationship between the old and the new, loyalty and friendship, and is not afraid to broach deep-seated emotions.
Filed under: Daughters | Fathers | Mothers | Wedding / Marriage
Year of release: 2001
The film charts preparations for a traditional Punjabi wedding between Aditi, the daughter of the wealthy Indian textile trader, Lalit Verma, and Hemant, a handsome computer engineer of Indian descent, based in Houston, Texas. When the groom arrives for the engagement and subsequent wedding festivities, Aditi is still in love with her ex-boss, the sleazy talk-show host of ‘Delhi.com'.
Filed under: Secrets | South Asian diaspora | Wedding / Marriage
Year of release: 2002
Toula and Ian's wedding in My Big Fat Greek Wedding
Toula Portokalos, the daughter of a Greek restaurant owner in Chicago turns from an ugly duckling into a swan when she falls in love with Ian Miller, a WASP high school teacher. Inter-ethnic romance is depicted as a transformative and mutually enriching experience. The couple overcome their parents' initial reservations and Ian is welcomed into the family circle of the large Portokalos family after he has converted to Greek Orthodox faith. Toula's and Ian's romance culminates in a lavish Greek wedding. As a wedding present Toula's father gives the young couple a house, right next to his, where the happy couple start a family and continue the Greek family tradition.
Filed under: Ethnic food | Fathers | Inter-ethnic romance | Mothers | Wedding / Marriage
Year of release: 1975
Set in 1971, the film centres on Shirin, a young woman from a poor family in rural Anatolia, who elopes from a marriage with a local administrator arranged by her paternal uncles while her father is in prison. Despite its pertinent title, the film does not actually feature a wedding ceremony.
Filed under: Patriarchy | Turkish German | Wedding / Marriage
Year of release: 2002
Gigi returns to Solino and marries Ada
Solino is the name of a small Italian town and the place where the film begins and ends. From here, the Amato family – consisting of father Romano, mother Rosa and their sons Gigi and Giancarlo – set off in search of a new and economically more prosperous life in Germany. The film essentially depicts the experience of Italian guest workers who were ‘invited’ by the German government in the 1950s and sixties to contribute with their labour force to the economic miracle.
Filed under: Fathers | History | Journey | Mothers | Wedding / Marriage
Year of release: 2010
This ethnic comedy examines the simple question why some ethnicities are 'more acceptable' in French contemporary society than others. The film centres on Mourad (played by the popular actor Kad Merad, himself of Algerian origin), who passes as an Italian called Dino Fabrizzi and works as a Maserati car dealer. All is well until his sick father asks him to observe the Ramadan in his stead.
Filed under: Inter-ethnic romance | Maghrebi French | Religion | Secrets | Sons | Wedding / Marriage
Year of release: 2007
Family drama about Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli, a Bengali couple who emigrate from Calcutta to New York in the late 1970s, where their two children, Gogol and Sonia, are born.
Filed under: Fathers | Inter-ethnic romance | Mothers | Sons | South Asian diaspora | Wedding / Marriage
Year of release: 1993
Wai-Tung, a Taiwanese American, lives with his American partner Simon in a long-term gay relationship in Manhattan. Wai-Tung's Taiwan-based parents are unaware of their son’s sexual orientation and want him to get married to a Chinese woman and produce an heir so as to continue the family line.
Filed under: Inter-ethnic romance | Patriarchy | Queer diaspora | Secrets | Wedding / Marriage
Year of release: 2004
Alim, of Muslim Pakistani origin, currently lives with his gay lover Giles in London. When his domineering mother Nuru comes over from Toronto to stay with her son for a while, Alim pretends that he is just flat-sharing with Giles.
Filed under: Inter-ethnic romance | Mothers | Queer diaspora | Secrets | South Asian diaspora | Wedding / Marriage