A week-long European Film Festival’ began in the city on Tuesday at Star Cineplex of Bashundhara City.
European Union and Star Cineplex are jointly arranging the second edition of the festival like previous year.
The festival was inaugurated on Tuesday evening with the screening of ‘Almanya’, a German film directed by Yasemin Samdereli.
Ambassador of the European Union to Dhaka William Hanna and Chairman of Star Cineplex Mahbuur Rahman attended the opening ceremony as distinguished guests.
‘Almanya’ is Turkish for Germany. Almanya is a 2011 German comedy film telling the story of three generations of a Turkish immigrant family.
The film premiered at the 61st Berlin International Film Festival in the section competition and won the Deutscher Filmpreis 2011 in the categories Best Script and Best Film.
During the 1960s, a flood of immigration brought thousands of Turks from their homeland to Germany, with promises of well-paying career opportunities. Without cultural context, one might find such a German and Turkish association to be bizarre — but when given historical context, which the heartwarming and humorous Almanya — Willkommen in Deutschland provides, one begins to understand the fascinating culture surrounding that population, which has now spent decades in a foreign country.
Almanya documents the story of a Turkish family, headed by a grandpa who has seen his children grow to father more children in Germany. Each member of the large family seems to hold a different opinion about his or her Turkish-German upbringing and personal degree of assimilation — so when grandpa declares over dinner that he has purchased a home in Turkey and would like to take a family trip for everyone to see it, he is met with much resistance. Even his wife of many years is surprised and disappointed by the news. To this, he sternly questions, “Have I ever asked anything of you?” and the family falls silent, only to eventually acquiesce to grandpa’s will.
From there, the film flies through timelines and decades, recapping the family’s immigration from Turkey to Germany with all of the pomp and romanticism that all who dream of a new opportunities no doubt have. But while the film humorously spotlights the excitement of grandpa’s past, it also expresses, on the behalf of both the grandparents and their Turkish-born children, a sense of nostalgia for a motherland that lies as a gateway between Europe and Asia.
The film was shot primarily in German. To give an impression how the Turkish guest workers and their families felt when they came to Germany in the 1960s, the passages spoken by German characters in the flashback scenes are spoken in a German-like gibberish.
According to the schedule, internationally-acclaimed films ‘A Hijaking’ of Denmark, ‘All The Glitters’ of France, ‘The Selfish Giant’ of the UK, ‘Lose Canons’ of Italy, ‘The Blitz’ of the Netherlands, ‘99% Honest’ of Norway, ‘The Near East’ of Spain, ‘Palme’ of Sweden, ‘Recycling Lily’ of Switzerland, ‘White Palms’ of Hungary and ‘Yopu Kiss Like A God’ of Czech Republic will be screened during the festival.
Source: Weekly Holiday
