Genres and Film Topics in Germany

During the economic boom in the 1960s West Germany recruited a huge labour force from southern European countries. Many of these so-called “guest workers” hoped to improve their circumstances considerably and then return to their native countries: instead, they often experienced exploitation and alienation.

When the economy took a turn for the worse in the ’70s, they were left with a choice between return and integration. The families that followed the workers to Germany comprised the second wave of immigration. For many of the women and children, life away from home was even harder than for the men: above all, they experienced social and cultural isolation. It was only the third generation – children who were born and went to school in Germany – that came to experience “life in two cultures” as both a problem and an opportunity. A process of emancipation and self-determination could then begin. This process has entered a new stage in the fourth generation: the social tensions now run more along economic than ethnic lines. As in other European countries, the new “multicultural” ghettos on the outskirts of Germany’s cities face growing dangers: crime, drugs, racist attacks, dim educational and professional prospects, a reversion to fundamentalism and the disintegration of family bonds.

Of Aliens and Alienation - Portrayals of immigration in films from the 1970s to the ’80s The first time German filmmakers focussed on the new “minority” was in the 1970s – prompted by horror at the cold welcome their society extended to immigrant workers. There were as yet no filmmakers from immigrant families. So the films seemed more like melodramatic appeals to German society than authentic portrayals of immigrant life itself. It was a cinema of social criticism that took up the cause of a growing but still disenfranchised segment of the population. Weiter...

Between Cultures - Third-Generation Immigrant Cinema Following the “cinema of alienation”, which dealt with the fate of immigrants as a political metaphor and a call for social change, the 1980s saw the birth of an authentic “cinema of métissage” in the German film scene. Filmmakers from immigrant families created a cinematic genre “between cultures”. Weiter...