40 m² Deutschland

40 m² Deutschland (1986)

Turna is brought from Turkey to Germany by her husband Dursun to start a new life. She soon realizes that he keeps her locked up in their flat every time he leaves for work in order to save her from immoral influences of the Western society. The dream of a better life becomes an inner fight between her culture and her freedom.

Date of release
1986-07-31
TMDB
6.2 / 10 (9)
Runtime
1h 20m
Genres
Drama
Director
Tevfik Başer

Casting

Interesting facts

40 qm Deutschland is a 1986 West German film directed by Tevfik Başer, who helped both with the script and the production. The film won several awards, making it one of the most significant German movies of 1986.

Production

40 qm Deutschland was first released on 31 July 1986.

The shooting of the movie took 21 days, followed by seven weeks of editing. With only 450,000 DM (c. US$280,000) spent on its output, it was a low-budget production. The only setting is a 40 m2 apartment in an old building in Hamburg.

Başer, who was chasing a vision he had been fostering for some time, handled the production, the script, the direction, the crew and the location almost all by himself. The church musician Claus Banzer ended up being in charge of the music, Izzet Akay was trusted with the camera and the lead actress Özay Fecht was already known as a jazz singer.

Six months prior to the premiere, Baser explained his reasons for the project to the Frankfurter Rundschau:

I want to try to show and clarify some of the thoughts and feelings of people who belong to a foreign culture, about which I criticize some parts but which I also understand because of its tradition. I want the Germans to get to know us, because the unknown is scary and produces hate, as you can see based on the demonstrations against the Turks.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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