Ayhan Salar

Inspired by Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, the film follows a prodigal son who returns after 12 years. His reappearance at the family home in rural Azerbaijan significantly alters their way of life.

In fremder Erde (In Foreign Soil) documents the Muslim traditions of burial in Turkey and Germany, but above all, the paths the dead take to return to Anatolian soil.

Rolf Jürgens is nicknamed "Kontroll-Rolf". For many years, he has made it his principle to recalculate, recount and check everything: Telephone bills, operating instructions and the contents of packaging. Rolf is not alone in his obsession - for some it's a joy, for others it's a pain. Besides Rolf, this documentary shows two other examples of people who take it very seriously.

Young Ruslan rows for a team coached by his father Ali, who places many demands upon his son and is continually dissatisfied by his performance. But when tragedy strikes, his father is overcome with emotions he doesn’t know how to deal with. Debut director Asif Rustamov treats the heavy topic with remarkable subtlety and discretion, emphasizing the characters’ carefully elaborated psychology.

A young woman waits for her husband to return from one of his regular business trips. However, he never shows up, and her joyful anticipation of seeing him develops into questioning concern and ultimately paralysing fear. The empty apartment becomes a labyrinth of memory and expectation, its silence broken only by the agonising sound of car engines, none of which announce her husband’s arrival…

Who doesn’t sometimes dream of being able to turn back time? With the help of an enchanted brooch, a homely woman in an advertising agency skyrockets to success in her firm and becomes the boss’s wife. Everything seems possible until her rival discovers her secret…

This is a simple love story. A silent film with sound in which virtual reality has finally caught up with us. And why does everyone always have to speak English?

1945. The women do the work in a remote village while the men are fighting the Nazis. A small group of deserters is hiding in the mountains and little Bahtiyar acts as the liaison between the men and the village.

A Turkish immigrant worker has died 1965. The preparation of the body is contrasted with a letter written by his wife in Turkey, which describes the situation and expectations of his family in the homeland. The presentation creates the atmosphere of a parable in which the parting of immigrant worker from his homeland is described, but which could just as well be his return home, as a corpse. The story revolves around the ambivalence of parting and the divergence between the actual events of life and the expectancy and hopes one has of this life. This is shown through the comparison between the hard fact of the immigrant's death and his wife's hopeful expectations of him and his successful return.