INDEX
Frustration is an important part of creating culture and mythology.
-The director has depicted immigrant and refugee stories in many of his films. Does the director have a strong desire to tell the world the situation of immigrants and refugees through his films?
Akin: Yes, I do. I am a second-generation immigrant myself. So I think that part of me will be present in all my films. I have been making films for 30 years, and during that time, the importance of immigrant and refugee issues has never been lost. It is a theme that is so relevant to the world we live in.
My family immigrated to Germany in the 1960s when the country was rebuilding and needed more immigrant workers, and now people fleeing the conflicts in Syria and Ukraine and the Taliban are moving here.
Germany is so short of workers that, for example, if you have a clogged toilet, you have to wait three months to call for repairs. The same is true for doctors; it takes three months to make an appointment with an ophthalmologist.
The situation has changed dramatically from the Germany of the 1980s and 1990s, where I grew up. So the need for foreign labor has never been greater. Nevertheless, the presence of immigrants and refugees has given rise to a right-wing movement, and the movement to get rid of these immigrants is becoming more and more intense. So there is a contradictory drama there. As a filmmaker, I may be sensitive to such things.
-Does the director think that music and film can help immigrants and refugees to survive in European society?
Akin: Yes, I think so. Especially, the hip-hop music depicted in this film is an oral history, and it started when African Americans talked about poverty in their neighborhoods in the 1970s.
At the time, they were rapping about the frustrations of living as a minority in a majority-centered American society. I believe that this culture was adapted and took root around the world. Not just copy and paste. It is not a literate culture that requires a high level of education, but an “oral history” aspect that allows immigrants and refugees to share their experiences through their own words.
Interestingly, even wealthy white kids in Germany listen to that kind of music. I am interested in that. It means listening to the music of people from different social backgrounds and classes. Of course, there is a thrill in the transmission of the reality of crime, violence, and gangs, and I think young people are attracted to that.
Akin: But what is interesting there is that the language of the German youth is quite influenced by the vocabulary of hip-hop. Moreover, the German language itself has been transformed by such influences, since the immigrant rap has Arabic and Turkish words in it.
As I mentioned earlier, I think of hip-hop as a music that expresses frustration, and I had that feeling when I was young, but I had forgotten about it. When gangsta rap came out in Germany, I felt that I was too old to understand it emotionally. But in the process of making this film, I remembered those frustrations. How serious those emotions are and how they are an important part of the culture. And how they are the driving force behind the creation of myths. I felt it all over again. Young people today are creating their own language and culture not from Wagner, but from hip-hop.
