Thorn Shelter: Duvarlar-Mauern-Walls Film Screening and Q&A with Can Candan

As part of the exhibition Thorn Shelter, which is on view at Depo until December 30, there will be a screening of Duvarlar-Mauern-Walls, a film by documentary filmmaker and academic Can Candan, followed by a Q&A with the director.

Duvarlar-Mauern-Walls, is a trilingual (Turkish, German, English) documentary about a moment in the recent history of the largest minority in re-unified, post-Wall Berlin: the Turkish-German community, as witnessed by a Turkish filmmaker from the USA. In the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the unification of the two Germanys, 1991 was the year when racist violence in Germany was becoming too visible to ignore. 1991 was also the 30th anniversary of the beginning of the migration from Turkey to Germany. In this film, Turkish-German Berliners talk about their past, present, and possible future, reflecting on what the fall of the Wall and the subsequent unification meant for them and how increasing hostilities are affecting their sense of identity and belonging in the new Germany. Duvarlar-Mauern-Walls, is a personal view from the periphery by a filmmaker, who is simultaneously an insider and an outsider.

2000 • dir. Can Candan • USA/TURKEY • 83 min. • video • in Turkish, German, English

Can Candan is an independent documentary filmmaker and academic at Boğaziçi University in Istanbul. He completed his undergraduate and graduate studies in filmmaking and media arts in the USA (Hampshire College, 1992 and Temple University, 1999). He has taught film and media arts at various universities and institutions in the USA until 2000, and in Turkey since then. He teaches documentary theory-history and mentors projects and theses in film studies and filmmaking, and publishes on documentary cinema in Turkey. He directed and produced three award-winning and internationally distributed feature documentaries: Duvarlar-Mauern-Walls (2000), 3 Hours (2008) and My Child (2013). My Child received various awards including: “Best Documentary Audience Award” at 2015 Pink Apple Gay and Lesbian Film Festival in Switzerland; “Theme Award“ at 2014 Flying Broom Women’s Film Festival in Turkey; “Best Film Award” at 2013 Thessaloniki LGBTQ Film Festival in Greece; “Best Documentary Audience Award” at 2013 Boston Turkish Festival Documentary Film Competition; “Public Awareness Project of the Year, 2013” at “Man of the Year” awards by GQ Magazine, Turkey. He is currently working on his fourth feature documentary film entitled Nuclear alla Turca.