Home is Nowhere - Home is Everywhere - Remigrants speak about their Cultural Identity in Istanbul
Director Subin Nijhawan
Countries Germany, Turkey
Duration 43 min
Synopsis
Recently, remigrants have received significant attention in German Media. Highly-qualified German-born individuals with a so-called Turkish migration history over generations, migrated from Germany to Turkey. The reasons are manifold. The movie endeavors to answer many questions, amongst them: Why did remigrants choose to migrate from Germany to Turkey? Why did they choose Turkey to be their home? What reasons triggered their decision to specifically identify Istanbul as their new home? Do they decide against the German and in favor of the Turkish culture, or do they choose the live in-between, in so-called Third Spaces, as we know from Homi Bhabha? Will they ever consider to re-re-migrate back to Germany? How does the diverse and dynamic cityscape of Istanbul influence their cultural identity? Can Istanbul be their new home at all? How do the individuals interplay with this city? Our documentary tries to answer those, among many other questions. Our interviewees are selected remigrants and experts, among them children, students, academics and artists. They reasons why they left Turkey are uncountable. Their statements compose an exciting characterization of a generation searching for a home in Istanbul, which tries to find their cultural identity, in accordance with several cultural concepts. Identity, home and language are some among many topics that are part of the documentary. The dynamics of the identity of those remigrants received a new momentum with the Gezi-protests, which coincided with the work on-sight. The film was launched at the 13th Turkish Film Festival in Frankfurt (October 2013, http://www.turkfilmfestival.de/schule.html). The short-version (20min) of the movie won the Third Price at this years' Visionale (December 2013, http://www.visionale-hessen.de/index.php/preistraeger-2013) The film was directed by Subin Nijhawan, Former Teacher at Goethe-Gymnasium Frankfurt and Academic Researcher at Goethe-University Frankfurt. It origins from a very innovative High School student-project, who were given third-party funding for a trip to Istanbul. The students conducted the interviews and operated the cameras. Subin Nijhawan and his team, comprising Adnan Mrkanovic and Isil-Sevin Isikli, Students at Goethe-University, had the idea, designed the ethnographic research on-site, identified the interview partners along with the story line, and organized the entire trip to Istanbul, where the shooting took place. The film was cut by Christian Öhl, student at HfG Offenbach. Please note: there might be a technical problem with the screener on this site. You can also access the movie on vimeo under the following links http://vimeo.com/82731398 (Original German Version) https://vimeo.com/84421135 (ENGLISH Subtitles) https://vimeo.com/84423373 (TURKISH Subtitles) The password for all links is globalization.
Recently, remigrants have received significant attention in German Media. Highly-qualified German-born individuals with a so-called Turkish migration history over generations, migrated from Germany to Turkey. The reasons are manifold. The movie endeavors to answer many questions, amongst them: Why did remigrants choose to migrate from Germany to Turkey? Why did they choose Turkey to be their home? What reasons triggered their decision to specifically identify Istanbul as their new home? Do they decide against the German and in favor of the Turkish culture, or do they choose the live in-between, in so-called Third Spaces, as we know from Homi Bhabha? Will they ever consider to re-re-migrate back to Germany? How does the diverse and dynamic cityscape of Istanbul influence their cultural identity? Can Istanbul be their new home at all? How do the individuals interplay with this city? Our documentary tries to answer those, among many other questions. Our interviewees are selected remigrants and experts, among them children, students, academics and artists. They reasons why they left Turkey are uncountable. Their statements compose an exciting characterization of a generation searching for a home in Istanbul, which tries to find their cultural identity, in accordance with several cultural concepts. Identity, home and language are some among many topics that are part of the documentary. The dynamics of the identity of those remigrants received a new momentum with the Gezi-protests, which coincided with the work on-sight. The film was launched at the 13th Turkish Film Festival in Frankfurt (October 2013, http://www.turkfilmfestival.de/schule.html). The short-version (20min) of the movie won the Third Price at this years' Visionale (December 2013, http://www.visionale-hessen.de/index.php/preistraeger-2013) The film was directed by Subin Nijhawan, Former Teacher at Goethe-Gymnasium Frankfurt and Academic Researcher at Goethe-University Frankfurt. It origins from a very innovative High School student-project, who were given third-party funding for a trip to Istanbul. The students conducted the interviews and operated the cameras. Subin Nijhawan and his team, comprising Adnan Mrkanovic and Isil-Sevin Isikli, Students at Goethe-University, had the idea, designed the ethnographic research on-site, identified the interview partners along with the story line, and organized the entire trip to Istanbul, where the shooting took place. The film was cut by Christian Öhl, student at HfG Offenbach. Please note: there might be a technical problem with the screener on this site. You can also access the movie on vimeo under the following links http://vimeo.com/82731398 (Original German Version) https://vimeo.com/84421135 (ENGLISH Subtitles) https://vimeo.com/84423373 (TURKISH Subtitles) The password for all links is globalization.