In our Monthly Film Series, we will show a variety of GERMAN or GERMAN language films from Germany, Austria and Switzerland. On the 2nd Tuesday of each month, audiences will now have a chance to see these films on a regular basis at the CLINTON STREET THEATER. (Children movies will be playing on Sunday afternoons – please check our website.) All films are with English subtitles.
LOVE, DEUTSCHMARK AND DEATH (Liebe, D-Mark und Tod/ Aşk, Mark ve Ölüm)  Buy Tickets
TUESDAY, July 11, 2023 – 7:00 PM
Germany 2022, 96 min, Languages: Turkish, German, English
Directed by Cem Kaya
Cast: İsmet Topçu, Ömer Boral, Yüksel Ergin, İhsan Ergin, Metin Türköz, Adnan Türköz, Yüksel Özkasap, Cevdet Yıldırım, Ercan Demirel
The German Federal Republic’s 1961 recruitment agreement with Turkey not only brought “guest workers” to Germany but also their music. Cem Kaya’s dense documentary film essay is a tutorial in Turkish-German recent history that tells a tale of assembly line jobs, homesickness and family reunification, the bazaar in the elevated railway station at Berlin’s Bülowstraße, xenophobia and racism, the wistful songs of the early years and the hip-hop of the post-reunification period. These are the stories shared by musicians beginning with Metin Türköz and Yüksel Özkasap, to the psychedelic Derdiyoklar and the chart-topping rapper Muhabbet. Their music has evolved a long way from that of German bands and has always developed out of the Turkish community and its desires. This is the world of Radio Yilmaz, various music cassette labels, protest rocker Cem Karaca’s German exile, and wedding bands that also sing in Kurdish and Arabic to meet the demands of the market. Extensive archival research and an interest in Turkish popular culture are recurring themes in Cem Kaya’s work. With Aşk, Mark ve Ölüm, he has created a rhythmic and vividly narrated cinematic encyclopaedia of Turkish music in Germany.

Cem Kaya

Born in Schweinfurt, Germany in 1976, he studied communication design in Stuttgart and worked first as a producer, editor and director of commercials and music videos before moving into documentary. His film Remake, Remix, Rip-Off, about the Turkish Yesilçam film industry that remakes Hollywood blockbusters for the domestic cinema market, premiered at Locarno. He is also a cinematographer and worked with others filming the investigative documentary 77sqm_9:26min, about the reconstruction of the NSU murder of Halit Yozgat, which premiered at documenta 14.

Filmography

2003 Die kalte Platte (The Cold Plate); documentary, co-directors: Chi-Hun Whang, Guido Negenborn 2005 Do Not Listen!; short film 2010 Arabeks – Vom Straßensound zum Massenpop (Arabeks); medium-length documentary, co-director: Gökhan Bulut 2014 Remake, Remix, Rip-Off – About Copy Culture and Turkish Pop Cinema; documentary 2022 Aşk, Mark ve Ölüm (Love, Deutschmarks and Death); documentary

Bio- & filmography as of Berlinale 2022

Awards:
  • The Audience Award of the Panorama section of the 72. Berlinale
  • IndieMusic Award of IndieLisboa
  • Documentary Film Award of Goethe Institut at Dok.Fest.Munich
  • Main Award at Dokka Film Festival