Yasemin ?amdereli, Nesrin ?amdereli | Germany | 2011 | 97’ | Turkish, German spoken, Dutch subtitles
Almanya, a German comedy by the sisters Yasemin and Nesrin ?amdereli, shows that there is also a light-hearted side to migration and integration. The 20-year-old Turk Hüseyin Yilmaz arrives in Germany in 1964 and becomes the country's 1,000,001st guest worker. He hopes to realize a better future for himself, his wife and his five children, only to discover that it is cold in his new country where blond-haired giants eat pork and speak a strange language. 45 years later Hüseyin wonders why he is still living in this foreign country. His youngest grandson Cenk complains that he is neither German nor Turkish and doesn't belong anywhere. During a family dinner Hüseyin proudly announces that he has acquired a house in Turkey, however nobody seems very excited about this. They don't want to go back to Turkey. In spite of loud protests the whole family eventually leaves for the newly acquired house. From that moment on the movie becomes a road movie, in which the family travels back in time and simultaneously discovers an amazing new country: a country called Almanya.
Almanya does not trivialize the migration problems, but still leaves room for us to laugh. This is why the movie is a quite a success in Germany with German as well as Turkish viewers.
Wednesday 17 august, 9.30 pm, Marie Heinekenplein (director present)
Thursday 18 august, 7.00 pm, Rialto (director present) 
