Year of release: 1990
The story of a family who leave their poor Turkish village and six of their seven children behind, seeking a more prosperous life in Switzerland. Together with their youngest son, they embark on a hazardous journey across the Alps.
Year of release: 2002
This Turkish German coming-of-age story centres on seventeen-year-old Johanna, who lives with her single mother in Cologne. Her one ambition in life is to become a fashion designer but she needs to find the money to study in Paris.
Filed under: Coming of age | Daughters | Fathers | Patriarchy | Secrets | Turkish German
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: 2004
Ismaël Ferroukhi's first feature is a touching road movie about an elderly Moroccan father, resident in Southern France, who pressurises his irreligious 17-year-old son, Reda, to drive him on a 3,000 mile Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.
Filed under: Fathers | Journey | Maghrebi French | Religion | Sons
Year of release: 2009
The drama explores the relations between a grief stricken father and his three daughters. Set in London, the time is now, the family of Indian origin- part of the UK diaspora.
Filed under: Asian British | Fathers
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: 1995
The film chronicles the memories of Yüksel Yavuz's father, who migrated to Germany in 1968, where he worked in a fish factory and ship building wharf.
Filed under: Documentary | Family memories | Fathers | Sons | Turkish German
Year of release: 1997
Based on a short story and screenplay by Hanif Kureishi, the film explores the culture clash between Western secular culture and Islamic fundamentalism, situating the conflict at the heart of the diasporic family.
Filed under: Asian British | Fathers | Religion | Sons
Year of release: 2006
Züli Aladag's controversial made-for-television film Rage imagines the encounter between a white middle-class German family and a young Turkish migrant, who intrudes into the family and terrorises them, as an escalation of violence that challenges the liberal values of the hegemonic family.
Filed under: Coming of age | Crime | Fathers | Patriarchy | Secrets | Sons | Turkish German