You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
40 QUADRATMETER DEUTSCHLAND/ FORTY SQUARE METERS OF GERMANY<br />
Established as a guest worker in Germany, Dursun (Yaman Okay) brings his young wife Turna (Özay Fecht) from Anatolia. Scared that<br />
she’ll get lost in the big city where she doesn’t speak the language nor knows the customs, Dursun dem<strong>and</strong>s that she stay home all day,<br />
making Turna’s experience of her new country the 40 square meters trapped between the walls of their tiny apartment. Brought<br />
up to obey men, Turna tries to adjust to her new life, her only communication with the outside world being shared gazes with a young girl<br />
who lives across the way. In his first film, Tevfik Başer touched upon a subject of growing concern but as of then rarely treated<br />
in the cinema: the millions of Turkish citizens who had emigrated to the West in search of work <strong>and</strong> better lives. He wisely avoids<br />
assigning blame for this tough situation—there are no real villains here, just simple people caught up in an overwhelming system.<br />
FESTIVALS AND AWARDS<br />
1987 German Film Awards (Germany): Outst<strong>and</strong>ing Individual Achievement of an Actress (Özay Fecht); Outst<strong>and</strong>ing Individual Achievement<br />
in Music<br />
1987 Rotterdam International Film Festival (Netherl<strong>and</strong>s): Best Debut Film<br />
1986 Locarno International Film Festival (Italy): Silver Leopard; Prize of the Ecumenical Jury<br />
TEVFiK BASER<br />
Born in Çankırı, Turkey in 1951, Tevfik Başer grew up in Eskişehir <strong>and</strong> moved to London in the mid-Seventies, where he trained as a<br />
photographer <strong>and</strong> graphic designer. He subsequently gained experience working as a cameraman at a television station back in<br />
Turkey, but was again uprooted when he moved to Germany to study Visual Communications at the Academy of Fine Arts in Hamburg.<br />
Başer, who has held German citizenship since 1989, directs the focus of his films on the lives of Turkish immigrants to Germany, who<br />
find themselves confronted simultaneously with a desire to integrate <strong>and</strong> a reluctance to sacrifice their own values.<br />
FILMOGRAPHY<br />
1983 Zwischen Gott und Erde (documentary)<br />
1986 40 Quadratmeter Deutschl<strong>and</strong>/Forty<br />
Square Meters of Germany<br />
1989 Abschied vom falschen Paradies /<br />
Farewell to False Paradise<br />
1991 Lebewohl, Fremde<br />
40 QUADRATMETER DEUTSCHLAND/FORTY SQUARE METERS OF GERMANY 26
Change language