Films by Aysun Bademsoy

Germany 2019, 84 min
by Aysun Bademsoy

The National Socialist Underground murders in the early 2000s left scars. Not only among the relatives of the victims, but also in the migrant communities and the entire German society.TRACES follows these scars and poses the question of whether such injuries can ever heal completely.“Between September 2000 and April 2007, nine immigrant businessmen and a German policewoman were murdered. (…) I read the news about the murders and thought: That could have been my father or my brother.” We’re talking about the murders of the self-proclaimed National Socialist Underground (NSU) which came to light through the main perpetrators’ suicide. After the end of the five-year NSU trial against their co-perpetrators and supporters, filmmaker Aysun Bademsoy goes in search of the traces left by this crime series: in the victims’ families and migrant communities, where the investigators had first investigated exclusively and sowed deep mistrust with speculations of drug trafficking and the Mafia, not least with assignations like “Kebap Murders”. “The NSU murdered my father. The investigators stained his honour. In doing so, they killed him a second time,” a surviving daughter says after the – to her disappointing – judgement was pronounced. Confidence in the German state was deeply shaken and the trial, a sobering experience for all families which left many things in the dark, destroyed rather than restored it. A film about surviving – despite everything.(DOK Leipzig, Frederik Lang)

Germany 2011, 87 min
by Aysun Bademsoy

In her documentary film, Aysun Bademsoy tries to approach the term ‘honour’ by searching for distinctions and similarities of the term in different sociocultural contexts.Muhamad, a 16-year-old German-Palestinian, Christian, a 15-year-old German and Kevin, a 17-year-old German-Ganaian are taking part in anti-violence training. Every sentence, every false look is a cause for them to defend their reputation and honor. It’s about the mothers, the sisters and the wives. The women’s bodies are always at their disposal. This is the bargaining chip, the foundation of identity and a feeling of self worth for the young men. A search for an identity where one no more exists. In the middle of our community, honor doesn’t play a role anymore. But it’s coming back – from the fringes.Anti-violence training, group-dynamic-exercises in a youth establishment, midnight sports. Places, that Aysun Bademsoy is on the search for trying to find a definition to the concept of honor in Germany that’s coming about in the twenty-first century.