SHAHADABERLIN, SECOND GENERATION

SHAHADA

CASTMaryam /// Maryam Zaree

Sammi /// Jeremias Acheampong Ismail /// Carlo Ljubek

Leyla /// Marija !karicicDaniel /// Sergej MoyaVedat /// Vedat Erincin

Sarah /// Anne Ratte-PolleRenan /// Nora Abdel-Maksoud

Sinan /// Burak YigitAmira // Yollette Thomas

Kinay /// Alexandros (Alexi) GehrckensRainer /// Gerdy Zint

CREW Writer, Director /// Burhan Qurbani

Co-writer /// Ole GiecProduced by /// Susa Kusche, Uwe Spiller,

Robert Gold (bittersuess pictures)Producer /// Leif Alexis

Co-Producers /// ZDF/Das kleine Fernsehspiel (Burkhard Althoff)Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg (Nico Hofmann)

In association with /// Hessen InvestCinematographer /// Yoshi Heimrath

Editor /// Simon BlasiComposer /// Daniel Sus

Set Designer /// Barbara FalknerCostume Designer /// Irene Ip

Make-up Artist /// Anja Heinemann, Sandra MeyerSound Designer /// Jörg Theil

Mixer /// k13 Credits Design /// weareflink

Casting Director /// Karen WendlandLine Producer /// Christine Günther

Post-Production /// PICTORION das werk Gmbh

90 minutes - Color - German, Turkish - GermanyRED ONE blowup to 35mm - Cinemascope 1:2,35 - Dolby 5.1.

PRODUCTION CONTACTSBITTERSUESS PICTURESZionskirchstr. 7310119 Berlin - GermanyTel.: 49 30 285 376 600Fax: 49 30 285 376 633info@bittersuesspictures.de

WORLD SALES AND FESTIVALSMEMENTO FILMS INTERNATIONAL9 Cité Paradis - 75010 Paris - FranceTel.: +33 1 53 34 90 20sales@memento-films.comfestival@memento-films.comwww.memento-films.com

INTERNATIONAL PRESS IN BERLINALIBI COMMUNICATIONSBrigitta PortierRaymond Lauwersstraat 37 a1560 Hoeilaart - BelgiumTel.: +32 477 98 25 84alibi-com@skynet.be

Berlin, today.During a razzia for clandestine employees in a warehouse, the fates of three young German-born Muslims collide.Ismail, a police o!cer of Turkish descent, is about to break his loyalty towards his badge and his wife as he "nds himself attracted to illegal immigrant Leyla.Sammi is torn between his Muslim faith and his irresistible desire for one of his male co-workers, despite his friends’ violent homophobia. He is appeased by the local Imam, a liberal religious leader revered by the community, who is going through a crisis of his own: his daughter, Maryam, is moving into an ultraconservative direction although she has been raised so tolerantly.#e three of them must "nd their place between faith and modern life in a contemporary Western society, between the luring liberated lifestyle and tradition.

SYNOPSIS

BURHAN QURBANI ON SHAHADA

A LITTLE PRAYER ON THE WAY

An image from my childhood – one still vivid in my mind:

I am about 10 years old. We live with my grandfather in the countryside – alone. My mother works in the city: it$s not easy for an unmarried foreign woman to "nd a job here.

My parents’ separation during the Diaspora caused a scandal. My grandfather traveled all the way from Afghanistan to support his divorced daughter and her two young sons. #e years of war, the loss of his eldest son, the time he$d spent in prison, had turned my grandfather into a religious man.

As every day, he gets up before dawn to pray.

As every day, he wakes us boys up for school. He puts butter on our toast, then ushers us to the door. But just as we$re about to leave the house, he says a few words. A phrase in Arabic. A sentence we have to remember, to repeat again and again until we know it by heart. #en he adds new words to those we already know. #e fragments add up, constituting a prayer.

And so we learnt, over the weeks, the Fatiha, Islam$s opening praise to the Lord: “In the name of Allah, most merciful, most gracious God.”

Discreetly, he continued with the Islamic creed, the Muslim declaration of faith: “#ere is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet.” #is is the Shahada.

#ese are the earliest memories of my religious education. My grandfather has passed away since. But my conception of Islam is still in%uenced by him, by the loving way he shared his faith with us, the way he passed his traditions down to us.

And still I must agree with Ephraim Kishon, the Jewish satirist, who once said that nothing is more di!cult than being both enlightened and religious. Speaking from personal experience, as a practicing Muslim brought up in tradition, life in Germany was never easy.

I would lie if I said that Allah and TV – the sacred and the profane – have always cohabited peacefully for me. I have discovered only in recent years that the spiritual education I enjoyed as a child and as a teenager cannot be discarded. I can therefore now commit to Islam without con%icting with myself.

My graduation "lm is my attempt at reconciling the contradictions of the two cultures I grew up in. To see the German and the Islamic parts of me combine on "lm.

#is is the Shahada.

SHAHADA is not a "lm about religion. It was never meant to be didactic. I didn$t want to take the viewer$s hand and tell him: “Islam works in this or that way”.

Rather, I wanted to tell stories about people. People who are, of course, part of a certain community. And casually, I approached the subject of their shared religion and culture, as well as the internal con%icts and contradictions that come with being Muslim in Germany.

I wanted to make a "lm about people in crisis, in extreme situations.

A father-daughter story; a story of guilt and atonement; a story about the value of one$s own life; a story about sexual awakening:

Stories that each spectator – independent of their religious belief – can relate to and think: “I know this. I have felt that way too once.”

It was important for me to explore how the environment, socialization and religion a&ect the characters, in a good or bad direction.

To broaden my statement: SHAHADA is not a "lm about religion. But the religious a!liation of the characters in%uences their actions and their decisions in a very certain way. It is about the path they choose.

#is is the Shahada.

BIOGRAPHY On Christmas Eve, 1979, a day before the Red Army marched into Afghanistan, Burhan 'urbani$s parents %ed their home to seek political asylum in Germany.Growing up, Burhan moved around Germany to follow his father, who worked for the US Army.A(er completing his high school diploma in 2000 in Stuttgart, he started working in the theatre, "rst as a dramatist$s assistant, then as assistant director.In 2002, he enrolled at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg to study "lm directing.Burhan$s short "lms have been selected by "lm festivals around the world and won a number of prizes, including, in 2008, the German Camera Award and the German Film Critics’ Award for ILLUSION. #e same year he was honored with the “Black Pearl” for “Best Newcomer of the Year” from the Middle East International Film Festival.SHAHADA, Burhan$s graduation project from the Akademie, is his "rst feature-length "lm.

FILMOGRAPHY2007 ILLUSION (Short Film) 2006 „Vögel ohne Beine“ (TV Series)2005 STILL ON EARTH (Short Film)2004 NUR WENN SIE SCHLAFEN (Short Film)2003 HEART SHAPED BOX (Short Film)

8

BURHAN QURBANI WRITER / DIRECTOR

© A

lfred

Ste

&en

MEMENTO FILMS INTERNATIONAL9 Cité Paradis - 75010 Paris - France | Tel.: +33 1 53 34 90 20 | sales@memento-films.com | www.memento-films.com