Love, Deutschmarks and Death

Synopsis

Love, Deutschmarks and Death tells the story of the independent and largely unknown music of immigrants from Turkey and their children and grandchildren in Germany in a very lively way, full of rhythm. In the form of a documentary essay, director Cem Kaya takes his viewers into a dazzling universe of musical diversity. In a cinematic experience of the highest sound quality, he brings the energy and spirit of those years to life. E.g., the stage shows of the eccentric folk duo Derdiyoklar at a wedding with thousands of guests in a multi-purpose hall redecorated as a festival hall somewhere in the Ruhr region: melancholic, but danceable, political, but cheerful, larmoyant in expression, but sincere.

Director Biography

Cem Kaya, born 1976 in Schweinfurt is a filmmaker from Bavaria. After studying communication design at the Merz Academy in Stuttgart with Prof. Christoph Dreher (1999–2005), he first worked as a producer, editor and director for commercials and music videos. Together with the Ludwigsburg film producer Jochen Laube, he made his first two feature-length documen- taries Arabeks (Arte, 2010, co-directed with Gökhan Bulut) and Remake, Remix, Rip-Off (ZDF Das kleine Fernsehspiel, 2014), produced by UFA Fiction. While Arabeks was about the music culture of internal migration in Turkey, Remake, Remix, Rip-Off was about the Turkish film industry Yesilçam and its custom of remaking Hollywood blockbusters for their domestic cinema market.