Mehmet Akif Buyukatalai’s suspenseful drama Hysteria offers a timely look at Germany’s diverse West Asian community and the subtle racism and hypocrisy that often permeate liberal discourse about immigrants and foreign cultures.
“Hysteria” revolves around a provocative film by a Turkish-German director about the racist arson attacks on German immigrant housing in the 1990s. When the Quran catches fire during filming, the Arab actors on set become angry, which leads to a tense situation. Caught in the crossfire, production intern Elif, played by Devrim Lengnau (“The Empress”), finds herself increasingly drawn into a whirlwind of shame and doubt.
Mehmet Akif Buyukatalay
German Films / Markus Hohn
Büyükatalay, who won the Best First Film award at the Berlinale in 2019 for his drama “Oray,” which also explores themes of Islamic culture in Germany, is among seven film professionals selected as part of this year’s Head-to-Head with German Film talent showcase campaign. .
talk to me diverse About his latest work and possible upcoming projects.
“Hysteria” is produced by Büyükatalay and Filmfaust, a subsidiary of producer Claus Herzog Reichel, based in Cologne. Pluto Film is screening the film at the European Film Market at the Berlinale (EFM).
What inspired you to make this film?
“Hysteria” is a continuation of my talk about media representation, especially the portrayal of Muslims. While in my first film “Oray” I tried to assert my right to my personal view of Muslim life in Germany outside the usual world of images, “Hysteria” is about the responsibility and challenges of producing these images under certain circumstances. Social class relations and existing power structures – both by those who create images and those who become images.
It is an approach to the question of representation in politically and emotionally charged discourse spaces and in times of far-reaching debates about postcolonialism, racism, and Islamic anti-Semitism.
To what extent does this reflect some of your personal experiences as a Turkish-German filmmaker?
It is about the feeling of dependency and the resulting feeling of helplessness. As an immigrant filmmaker, you are not only fighting against the racist and Oriental images that dominate screens and minds, but also for the people who manage and distribute public funds. However, almost all of them are socialized very differently than I am.
They know my world and culture precisely through pictures and news. This means that I and the decision makers have accurate ideas about the world I come from. In this central region, consensus must be built. Without that, there is no cooperation and there is no money. It is precisely at this point that a certain form of injustice begins.
Films that conform to these old ideas and continue to reproduce them are much easier than films that want to explore, experiment and search for new images.
“Hysteria” lIt addresses many aspects of the German experience of members of the Turkish and Arab communities, as well as the attitudes of liberal, Westernized Germans of Turkish origin.. How much did you want to explore the many contradictions and differences within these very diverse communities?
As in Ouray, in Hysteria, the characters’ biographies are complex and cannot be read within simple definitions of identity. It is a biography, not an identity. Almost all of the characters in the film, including the supporting characters, share the experience of not having lived in Germany for more than one generation. However, it is impossible to generalize and piece together beyond this one experience. They all have different desires, fears, values, goals, and ways of dealing with conflicts. This psychological treatment is part of my efforts for liberation.
Burning the Quran is viewed differently by some angry extras. For some, it is an insult to their religion, for others simply their culture. How important is it for you to articulate these nuanced viewpoints?
Burning the Holy Qur’an (is seen) as a sign of Western arrogance towards other cultures and exploitation for its own purposes. It is also an expression of the West’s arrogant and ignorant attitude towards all non-Western cultures. But here too there is more than a purely postcolonial racist reading. It’s about symbols. The point is that the same symbol can represent something completely contradictory to people who are socialized in completely different ways. Because burning the Qur’an is also a symbol. It symbolizes Islamophobia or criticism of Islam. But it is also a symbol of freedom of expression, even if it is hurtful or insulting. Historically, Europe has developed a strong belief in absolute, almost religious, freedom of expression, which conflicts with the religious belief that the Qur’an is the word of God and that He is above all else. Suddenly two worldviews collide, beliefs that have evolved differently over thousands of years in different geographic regions around the world. And it is precisely at this meeting that the explosion, the explosion, the hell occurs. The person with power is the one who sets the rules and ultimately has the power to make decisions.
In Hysteria, a character accuses the director of making films in which minorities are presented as victims “just so that Europe can have a clear conscience.” Do you share this opinion?
Yes, I share this opinion, although it does not apply universally to all Western films. I feel like we would rather make a movie about bad working conditions than fight bad working conditions. These films create a soothing catharsis that soothes our conscience and combative rage. Other than that, I can’t explain why so many victim films are made, yet the circumstances rarely or never change.
Do you think filmmakers of West Asian descent need to be more creative, more independent, or more radical, or is this very difficult, or even impossible, due to Germany’s restrictions on film financing?
definitely. We need extremes in our search for form and questions. We want to be able to search without having to provide answers. It’s as if post-immigration filmmakers are under pressure to explain. “Explain to me your world, but the way I want to see it. Please explain what you actually saw on the news.” But is that what matters to me? I first have to realize what interests me outside of these expectations, and then I can make independent, radical films. It is not impossible to make these films. However, it is an uphill battle, a constant self-affirmation. When looking at the films produced by post-immigrants to date, it becomes clear that more films have lost this battle than have affirmed their own vision. But every year around the world there are always new films that prove that the struggle for good, complex films with their own vision is worth it. I take this as a good example.
What directors inspire you?
In general, Pier Paolo Pasolini and Rainer Werner Fassbinder are my absolute role models when it comes to their radicalism in their cinematic and humanistic research as well as their depiction of social reality. But in Hysteria I used two other great artists as models: Michael Haneke and Roman Polanski. I even feel like I’ve compressed two Polanski films into one – the psychological thriller elements combined with the chamber theater elements of his films.
What are you working on next?
I am currently writing several projects. I would like to picture Klaus Mann’s “Mephisto” at the present time, a great book about the lack of ideas, empty phrases, and artists’ lethargy in the face of the growing right-wing threat and their subsequent adjustment after seizing power. And then I want to make a film set in Hagen where five cousins want to start a security company, but increasingly become what they actually want to protect the city from.