Sibel Kekilli: Family Apartment

Debut Film Dept: And woe betide she who tries to leave that baggage behind, according to Calgary Herald. Try as she might to explain -she shows her mother the bruises from the beatings she received and tells her father how badly her husband treated her -Umay can't raise an ounce of sympathy. Marriage is for life, she's told, for better or for worse and in German, "die Fremde" means "the foreigners," and that's what the Turkish protagonists in Feo Aladag's debut film are: immigrants who call working-class Berlin their home. But as the movie's international title implies, when they leave their homeland, they carry all sorts of baggage: religious taboos, respect for patriarchy and oldfashioned ideas about marriage. A young mother named Umay Sibel Kekilli dares to try. Brutalized by her husband in Turkey, she flies to Berlin with their son, Cem Nizam Schiller and settles into the family apartment with her parents, two brothers and younger sister. At first, Umay doesn't reveal she's left her husband for good, and when she does, the full pressure of family honour is brought to bear. A woman who leaves her husband must be cast out. As reported in the news.
@t family honour, calgary herald