ifs-Begegnung Gender & Diversity mit »Ellbogen«

In the organizer's words:

On the big screen:

"Elbow"
(Feature film, DE / TR / FR 2024, 85 min.; Director: Aslı Özarslan)

Followed by a film discussion with actress Jamilah Bagdach (role of Elma), moderated by Dr. Maxa Zoller (Artistic Director IFFF Dortmund+Cologne)

Hazal (Melia Kara) is 17 and lives in Berlin. Her most fervent wish: a life. She wants a damn future. But despite countless applications, she can't find an apprenticeship and isn't even invited for an interview. Instead, she is stuck in a pointless training program at the Jobcenter. But she wants to celebrate her 18th birthday with her best friends Elma (Jamilah Bagdach) and Gül (Asya Utku). Just like before, when they thought they could achieve anything as long as they stuck together. But Hazal already suspects in the queue outside the club that this is not for them. They fail at the doorman. On the way home, their frustration and anger escalate into blunt violence and a momentous act. Hazal flees to Istanbul, where she has never been before, and is completely on her own.

The film adaptation of Fatma Aydemir's bestseller of the same name is an uncompromising, atmospherically dense portrait of a young woman and her search for her place in the world. You want to run through the night with her, you want to know what will happen to her and to all of us. Hazal is "neither a one-dimensional 'victim' nor a model migrant who does everything right. She is a complex female figure who rejects the perpetrator-victim dichotomy ... Hazal's world is one that not only I, but many migrants in Germany and Europe know. It is a life that consists of constantly having to assert or prove oneself. In Hazal, this society is exposed" (Aslı Özarslan).

The film "Elbow" celebrated its world premiere in February 2024 at the Berlinale in the Generation 14plus section and won the International Debut Feature Film Competition at the International Women's Film Festival Dortmund+Cologne in April 2024.