Synopsis
Stories of migrants and their descendants in Germany: a monument for a Pakistani poet in Munich, the payslips of a Turkish Gastarbeiter in Kiel, three sisters turning a decolonial gaze on Bavarian history.With: Aulic Anamika, Saboura Naqshband, Basira Beutel-Biyik, Kirat Sarkaria
In 1986 the Muhammad Iqbal Monument was erected in Munich, commemorating the poet, philosopher, and mentor of the independent postcolonial state of Pakistan. Iqbal, who completed his doctorate in Munich in 1907, lived in Bavaria for many years and died in Pakistan in 1938. In 1962 Gani Bilir arrived in Kiel as a so-called Gastarbeiter. His payslips, which are visible in the film, are discovered by the filmmaker in the family archive. They are a document of the inhumane working conditions of migrant workers and their lack of recognition as humans in Germany. A variety of places, moments, and snatches of historical memory are woven in the film into a particular decolonial view of our time. The telling of history and the politics of memory in Germany are oriented to a white dominant society. The longings, experiences, or struggles of Black people, People of Color, Indigenous people, and migrants are marginalized. Three sisters, Saboura, Basira, and Kirat, gather at historically significant sites in Bavarian history. They approach these stories with their own biographies and the sculptures by the artist Ahu Dural. As poets, the children of migrant workers, thinkers they stand for the many stories of resistance and biographies of the in-between world. [catalogue text 53 Berlinale Forum @ 73 BERLINALE]