Films by Cem Kaya

Germany 2022, 96 min
by Cem Kaya

The German Federal Republic’s 1961 recruitment agreement with Turkey not only brought Gastarbeiter (guest workers) to Germany but also their music. Cem Kaya’s dense documentary film essay is a tutorial in Turkish-German recent history that tells a tale of assembly line jobs, homesickness and family reunification, the bazaar in the elevated railway station at Berlin’s Bülowstraße, xenophobia and racism, the wistful songs of the early years and the hip-hop of the post-reunification period. These a

Germany 2014, 96 min
by Cem Kaya

Between the 1960s and 1970s, Turkey boasted the title of one of the largest centers of film producers in the world, despite its film industry suffering from a chronic creative deficit: the lack of writers. In order to maintain the flow of filming, Turkish producers copied scripts and plots from international productions. So for any successful title such as Tarzan, Dracula or Star Trek, there came to be a Turkish version. This documentary introduces us to the golden age of Turkish popular cinema