Love, Deutschmarks and Death / Aşk Mark ve Ölüm - 2022

In the early 1960s, the so called guest workers from Anatolia and other parts of Turkey were recruited by the Federal Republic of Germany. From the beginning, there was something that always accompanied them and was part of their culture: their music – a piece of home in a foreign land. Over the years, independent musical directions developed in Germany that did not exist in this form in their mother country. The exciting cinema documentary “Aşk, Mark ve Ölüm” / LOVE, DEUTSCHMARKS AND DEATH by Cem Kaya tells the unprecedented story of an independent musical culture of immigrants from Turkey, their children and grandchildren in Germany in an entertaining and very complex way with never-before-seen archive footage. Far from home, strangers in the new country, melancholic musical styles such as the Gurbetçi-Lieder (songs from abroad) emerged at the beginning of their immigration. Those songs were presented by artists like Yüksel Özkasap, called the Nightingale of Cologne, or Aşık Metin Türköz (“Mayestero”). They were followed by younger musicians such as the duo Derdiyoklar (song “Liebe Gabi”), Ozan Ata Canani (song “Deutsche Freunde”) or Cem Karaca and the Kanaken (“Mein Freund, der Deutsche”), who sang in German for the first time in their socially critical songs and thus shaped both migrant and German pop culture. Hip hop became the voice of the second and third generation who had grown up in Germany. Pioneers of German-Turkish Hip hop like Fresh Familee, King Size Terror or Islamic Force were also pathbreakers of contemporary pop music in Germany.

The film title “Aşk, Mark ve Ölüm” is inspired by the poem of the same name by the author Aras Ören, which was set to music by the German band IDEAL in 1982.