Immigration in Berlin

Integration
Second-generation immigrant
cinema: representations of women
The voiceless female immigrant popular in
immigrant cinema during the 70s and 80s is
out-dated for second-generation immigrant
film directors who undermine the onedimensional
stereotypes of females to
provide a realistic representation of life.
Aysum Bademsoy addresses issues of female
victimisation in her documentary Ehre (201 1 ).
Bademsoy examines the notion of honour in
relation to honour killings within the context of
patriarchal systems that are present both
socially and institutionally in modern day
German cinema during the
1 970s and 80s saw the
burgeoning of a new kind of
cinema, one focused on the
outskirts of German society and
the migrants who lived in these
margins. These new narratives
were characterised by what
Burns (2007) calls “the cinema
of the affected” in which
migrants were portrayed as
exploited, uneducated victims
in a space between two cultures
that were mutually exclusive
(Burns, 2007).
The 1 990s saw the development of a new form
of immigrant cinema that rejected the Turkish
patriarch and his victimised and obedient wife
or daughter. Fatih Akin, Aysun Bademsoy and
Serap Berrakkarasu, as second-generation
immigrant directors, follow narratives that
explore exclusion and integration for women.
The three directors attempt to unravel the
conflation of Turkish culture, patriarchy and
feminism. Their portrayal of integrated secondgeneration
females aims to shift expectations
of victimisation and move away from the idea
of absolute otherness. Akin, Bademsoy and
Berrakkarasu convey that the ethnic background
of female immigrants does not present
as the biggest issue or central theme in
migrant cinema as was common in the preunification
era. Rather they present a realistic
representation of integration through narratives
that ultimately celebrate cultural hybridity.
“Wir haben hier viel gefunden, aber unser Verlust ist auch sehr groß...!”
(Seriban in Töchter zweier Welten, 1 990)
Germany. Furthermore she explores cultural
codes that are often simplified within film to
challenge the polarization that occurs around
the issue of honor killings, a sight that typically
symbolizes failed integration.
The documentary provides a juxtaposition
between a group of young male, thirdgeneration
immigrants who are involved in
anti-violence training and the institutional
actors such as police officers, lawyers and
program staff who work with them, all
coincidentally male. For the young men,
honour is contingent to the protection and
behavior of female family members and central
to their identity. However, the documentary
does not feature any women, and Bademsoy
does this “to capture [the] absence that these
women have left behind” (Bademsoy in
Naiboglu, 201 4). Bademsoy adopts and then
hyperbolizes the stereotype of the silent
female by absolutely excluding her. She shows
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