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  FAQs “Damla means drop, Derya means ocean“

What was the main motivation for making the film?
It was quite an experiment, also because it was basically my first attempt. I have been working as a journalist for print media in the realm of sexual and population politics. I consider myself part of a minority, or even more than one, lg beyond heteronormative structures and trying to survive as a non comercial artist, a music poetress..
A few years ago I frequented some courses on digital audio engeneering in order to arrange my own songs and also picked up a few things about editing videos.

  At the same time I was a social worker in a councelling center for turkish women in Berlin-Neukölln. There I heard a lot of stories, things that the girls and young women had experienced at school, in their homes or on the street. I felt I had to do something, also because noone had ever asked them about their point of view. Usually you get all the experts talking about so called ethnic minorities in public, but what do they really know about what it feels like to live inbetween two or more different cultures.
  I wanted to give these young women a voice and started to interview them. They spoke qiute openly about their lives, also because we had known each other for years. But they didn’t want to show their faces on screen. So I decided to shoot the environment they lived in as a complementary element to their comments.
  Why is the movie in black & white?
Even though it is a documentary film, my approach was rather philosophical. Apart from the fact that there is nothing fictional about it - both the comments and the settings are purely authentical – I was looking for the symbolical side of the subject. After all this film is about identity, or more precisely, about the fragility of identity. Beyond the description of somebody’s life-story we discover the context, which is a social order that forces all of us to define ourselves in one way or another. At the same time there is no real choice for a free definition. I mean, you can either be a man or a woman, a foreigner or a German, a Hetero- or a Homosexual, a Christian
or a Muslim and so on... Black and white really suits this way of dualistic thinking.
  Where has the film been shown and how were the reactions?
Apart from the film’s appearance at the One-World-Filmfestival Berlin in 2009 there have so far only been several occasions of public screenings, mainly in social centers inside Berlin. Funny enough my rather unintended “Neukölln image campaign“ was perceived almost always negatively from any official side, whereas the majority of the mainly young audience with some background of migration found themselves in it.
So much about perception…
Anyway, at least the film served its purpose to create a basis for further discussion.
  How was the project financed?
The film had a very low budget founded by the Aktion Mensch. Half of the money (altogether under 4.000 €) was spent on a brandnew camera - only to find out, that
it was practically impossible to move around the area with a visible intention to take pictures including people, even though we never intended to expose anybody. Still some folks felt rather irritated and started to threaten my filmpartner who then retired from the project. In the end I decided to use my own small-size pocket camera which I had aquired from a local discounter. However, it seems to fit into the picture...
  You can watch or download the documentary film on realeyz.tv, please also check the trailer on Youtube!
 

Interview:exberliner, june 2012