Love, Deutschmarks and Death

PAGLEJ! a series of movies about music

Thursday, November 23, at 19:00
Filmsko gledališče Idrija
admission free

Photo: promo

Love, Deutschmarks and Death (Aşk, Mark ve Ölüm)
Director: Cem Kaya. Performers: İsmet Topçu, Yüksel Özkasap, Metin Türköz, Cavidan Ünal, Hatay Engin, Cem Karaca, Boe B., Dede Deli, Derya Yildirim. Production: Film Five, filmfaust, Germany, 2022. Duration: 96 min.

The film Love, Deutschmarks and Death tells the stories of Turkish guest workers (gastarbeiters) in the Federal Republic of Germany, who arrived there in the early sixties of the 20th century. This three-million-strong diaspora also brought the elements of their culture, especially traditional music, which in the new environment grew into many new directions, variations and offshoots that did not exist in Turkey before. The new musical trends of guest workers developed in Germany in parallel but differently in several regions or industrial centers, so that the music scenes in Berlin, Frankfurt and Hamburg are very different from each other. The movie, a kind of documentary essay about the musical culture of Turkish guest workers, which is little-known to the local people (Germans), documents both the nostalgic songs of the very first immigrants as well as the modern hip-hop of the second and third generations. “These artists interpreted songs, customs and dances in accordance with their environment. The sound in Germany has also changed due to quick access to technological innovations, for example keyboard samples that appeared at German music fairs,” said director Cem Kaya about the new music of the “German Turks”. Audience Award for Best Documentary in the Panorama section at the Berlinale.

The movie series is prepared in co-production with Idrija City Library.