Amin Farzanefar: You’re now in the village Is it Karakocan from MEIN VATER, DER GASTARBEITER?
Yüksel Yavuz: Karakocan is the name of the district town. The village is called Mergamendê, the meadow of Mendê.
How is life for people today, compared to 27 years ago?
YY: In the film you see the forest fires, the tanks. The mid '90s were the worst period of the conflict between the Turkish state and the PKK (the Kurdistan Workers‘ Party), to which the villagers also fell victim. In 2015 there were some more fierce battles, but since then the conflict has moved to northern Syria, northern Iraq, and it’s been calm here for two or three years. But there are hardly any people here. You only see old people in the village. Even those who are over 50 don’t see a future and want to leave. Most want to go to Germany.
Let’s go back: 27 years ago, you were a creative person, on the path to becoming a filmmaker. What was your approach? What did you want to talk about?
YY: MEIN VATER, DER GASTARBEITER was already in my file when I applied to the University of Fine Arts of Hamburg in 1992. I studied with Professor Gerd Roscher, focusing on documentary and essay films, and that flowed into the film. My voice-over already had an essayistic touch and that is also what I like about the film so much. Seen through a current knowledge about film and art it is my favourite of my films, despite the limits of the era.
The film has a fairy tale-like quality throughout—Germany is “Germanistan behind the mountains”. This poetry is ironic, melancholy. Where does the language come from?
YY: I was four years old when my father went to Germany—and his journey there, my feelings about Germany and about what kind of country it could be, already had something of a fairy tale, and I worked that into the film. The generation of our fathers, and also our mothers, the first so-called “guest workers” toiled in terrible conditions. I avoided this all my life, hard work; but somehow this need emerged, not only to express myself but also to express the story of my family, my father, my mother. And not only with a plaintive tone but with a naturalness, with a very precise language of my own. This is what characterises this film, I would say.
But your father’s story is also atypical in a way. Your mother’s complaint is twofold, that he left but also that he did not stay away long enough. She says that he has “neither a pension nor rights”.
YY: It was common for guest workers to dream of returning—but then they bought a plot of land, built a house, some brought their families over, and the parents had to admit that their children would have a better future in Germany. And my father was scared of this, that he would become rooted and nailed to the ground, so he avoided bringing the whole family over to Germany. And he led a happy life with my mother after he returned! He died 11 years ago, and my mother is 84 and still tough, even though she complains about loneliness.
Who made MEIN VATER, DER GASTARBEITER possible?
YY: I submitted it to film funding agency of the city of Hamburg, who refused it. But someone on the committee contacted me and said he would try to find money. That was Thomas Kufus from Zero One Film; he presented the project to ZDF’s “Das kleine Fernsehspiel” and then it all went very fast. The commissioning editor Claudia Tronnier agreed. I worked with her again on KLEINE FREIHEIT and with Thomas we also made APRILKINDER.
MEIN VATER, DER GASTARBEITER is a moving piece of contemporary history, in which you compare traditional and industrial work, inter alia. In a succinct scene, your father praises the junior boss and says that he seems to have had great new ideas. He explains that the Turkish welders were the best and that’s why they were the most exploited.
YY: The Sietas shipyard is one of the few private shipyards in northern Germany to have survived the crisis of the ‘70s and ‘80s precisely because of the so-called guest workers, who worked for very little money. But this junior boss—apparently he didn’t work that well; even though the shipyard was founded in 1634, it went bankrupt in 2018/2019, in the eighth generation.
One time the soldiers saw the equipment, but they let us through. I think it’s because we weren’t filming in the district town, so they didn’t catch wind of it, otherwise they would have intervened.
The other part was filmed in the village. What were the production conditions like?
YY: We used 16mm film—a camera, a tripod, and film material ready. I was scared because there were checkpoints everywhere; there was a state of emergency. One time the soldiers saw the equipment, but they let us through. I think it’s because we weren’t filming in the district town, so they didn’t catch wind of it, otherwise they would have intervened. I was terrified that the x-ray machines at the airport would damage the material when I tried to export the film rolls. I have a relative who had worked at the airport. He helped us to put the rolls in our bags and to get past the x-ray machines.
How was the film received?
YY: It had a lot of viewers on ZDF and 3sat repeated it, then there was a prize at the Munich Documentary Film Festival. Later, lots of migration associations and initiatives screened the film. Many people from the second generation identified with it: the story of their parents, their family. I thought that was nice.
It is not only a documentary film about the first generation of guest workers but also about Kurdish life. But that wasn’t really the primary focus of the reception, was it?
YY: Of course, German critics don’t always notice this difference. My films are about migrants, but they always have a Kurdish perspective. Turks and Kurds have a very different experience of migration. The partiality for Erdogan that Turkish migrants in Germany have is a falling back on nationalism, on the Ottoman era, the idea that a country such as Turkey has their back, etc. The Kurds, according to general opinion, found it easier to accept Germany as their new home and developed more awareness of their new society.
Your village lies on a linguistic border, doesn’t it?
YY: We speak Kurmanji, not Zaza.1The populations of Eastern Anatolia speak different dialects and languages, whose differences and similarities are the subject of debates revolving around identity politics. Zaza is close to Kurdish and Kurmanji is one of the three most widespread Kurdish languages (author’s note). Nearby, in the region of Dersim to the west there are Alevi Zaza, and southeast of us there are Sunni Zaza. In terms of religion, it is partly an Alevi region, but the increasing political consciousness of the population as a result of the ongoing conflict made the borders became more porous. The pro-Kurdish party also contributed to that.
Kurdish identity was an umbrella that Alevites and Sunnis could use to tolerate each other?
YY: Though it must be said that the Alevis are much more assimilated than the Sunni Kurds. Because the state fostered Sunni Islam while the Alevis were persecuted they left their villages, and throughout the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s they moved to the western cities of Turkey.
The broadcasters’ programming departments have hardly anyone with a migrant background who might be sensitive to our projects. Migrants don’t have much representation in the media here.
Your debut was followed by two additionally noteworthy features and then documentary films, but you haven’t made any films for nine years. How come?
YY: I’ve continued to develop feature films, written screenplays, but I haven’t received any support. The German television landscape has changed considerably. Documentaries barely receive any funds, and there aren’t enough means, or broadcasting slots, for feature film productions; instead only these stupid series are being made. The broadcasters’ programming departments have hardly anyone with a migrant background who might be sensitive to our projects. Migrants don’t have much representation in the media here. It’s an area that is reserved to Germans, apart from a few news presenters. But that’s just window dressing.
If you could, would you want to follow up on your first film or is that out of the question?
YY: In 2018, I developed a documentary film project for the 60th anniversary of the labour recruitment agreement between Turkey and Germany in 2021. The screenplay received support from the German Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media. It was about three generations of migrants in different regions of Germany. I submitted it to the broadcasters. Not one was interested. That could have been the continuation of MEIN VATER, DER GASTARBEITER.
My mother is the last of us who still lives in Mergamendê. Every time I visit I feel the emptiness more. On the other hand, regarding the political situation, I am glad that my nieces and nephews were born in Germany and grew up there, studied there, and have a very different life from the one we had back then.
Are there also people who go back?
YY: Yes, like my father back then. My cousins for example, they’ve started coming to the village. That’s nice. There’s nature here. People you haven’t seen for 30, 40 years suddenly turn up here as well. There’s a microcosm of people with experiences from all over the world. So, you live a few months in Germany, a few months here. Why not? Something new can emerge. Maybe I’ll make a film about that.
Amin Farzanefar lives in Cologne and works as a curator and cultural journalist, preferably on the cinema of the Near and Middle East.
Translation: Anne Thomas
