Close-Up Kurdistan

The film depicts the daily life of a Kurdish German family in Hamburg. Cem, one of sons, earns his living in a slaughterhouse and has a secret love affair with a German prostitute.

The Kurdish director Yüksel Yavuz tells in an autobiographical documentary about the life of his father, who worked as a so-called guest worker at a Hamburg shipyard from 1968 to 1984. Never really at home, he only knew the way to work, the fish market and the coffee house. Yavuz succeeds in creating a touching contemporary document in which he traces the personal life story of his father and connects it with a piece of the social history of the FRG.

Hamburg. Baran, a Kurdish orphan, and Chernor, a refugee from Africa, are living in the shadows of a city that barely registers their existence. Bound by statelessness and survival, they carve out a fragile friendship on the margins, stealing glances of freedom in a country that denies them belonging.