Engagements, Entanglements: A Place Called Home

IIC Film Club in collaboration with Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan presents a selection of contemporary films from Germany that reflect the multicultural diversity of the country. 

©mitosfilm Wednesday, 12 April 2023, 18:30
HOUSE WITHOUT ROOF
Directed by Soleen Yusef
2016, Colour, 124 min

Three siblings born in the Kurdish part of Iraq who grew up in Germany – Liya, who performs as a singer in a night club; Jan, whose wife is expecting a child; and misfit Alan – return to their country of birth in order to fulfil their late mother’s last wishes. She wanted to be buried in her home village next to her husband, who was killed during the war against Saddam’s regime, but her relatives in Kurdistan are vehemently opposed to this. Wanting to fulfil their mother’s wish, the squabbling siblings make off with the coffin and, pursued by their furious relatives, embark on a strenuous journey through a land in which the Peschmerga are battling IS terrorists.

© filmfaust and Christian Kochmann Monday, 17 April 2023, 18:30
ORAY
Directed by Mehmet Akif Büyükatalay
2019, Colour, 100 min

After an angry debate Oray has left a message on his wife Burcu’s voicemail yelling the Islamic triple talaq divorce formula. His Imam orders the newlywed couple to take a break, and Oray moves in with friends. Soon he finds a home in a new mosque, whose Imam interprets the divorce formula more strictly than as a mere separation. Oray is now torn between his love for his wife and his commitment to his faith.

© Komplizen Film Wednesday, 19 April 2023, 18:30
EXIL
Directed by Visar Morina
2020, Colour, 121 min

Although apparently well-integrated into Germany, Xhafer, an engineer originally from Kosovo, increasingly feels as if he is being mobbed at work – or is he just hypersensitive? A fascinating psychological drama about identity, belonging, and alienation.

© Christian Schulz Schramm Film Monday, 24 April 2023, 18:30
UNDINE
Directed by Christian Petzold
2020, Colour, 90 min

An unnaturally attractive woman who loves every man who summons her but who also has to kill him if he leaves her – that is the mythical water nymph, Undine. She can live on land and among people only if she has a lover. Christian Petzold takes on the source material and transposes it to contemporary Germany, between Berlin and Bergisches Land.

© Augenschein Filmproduktion Wednesday, 26 April 2023, 18:30 
HOME
Directed by Franka Potente
2020, Colour, 100 min

Actress Franka Potente has made her first feature film as a director, exquisite in style and content. HOME has clearly structured images that show a lot of emptiness, and next to the emptiness the neglected American underclass. The story is about a man who returns to his hometown in California after almost 20 years in prison. There, as a teenager, he killed a woman, and now he has served his sentence. However, the inhabitants of the small town have a different point of view. This is precisely where Potentes' film goes against convention: it is about guilt, about revenge and in the end about redemption.

© Max Preiss Thursday, 27 April 2023, 18:30
TOUBAB
Directed by Florian Dietrich
2020, Colour, 96 min

When two heterosexual ghetto buddies suddenly have to marry in order to save one from deportation to Africa, the result is a comedy that is as biting of a film as it is a thoughtful look at migration politics and racist and sexist prejudices.