Film Screening
German Movie Nights: It’s Burning

Powerful debut feature based on real events

09/26/2024
7pm
7:00 PM EDT Goethe-Institut New York

The German Film Office is pleased to host a special screening of It’s Burning, followed by a conversation between director Erol Afşin and Fatima Naqvi, Elias W. Leavenworth Professor of German and Film and Media Studies at Yale University. Presented in collaboration with Filmfest München, as part of the Goethe-Institut’s “Longing/Belonging” festival in North America. Please register to attend.
Register Taking its title from the Yiddish song “S’brent,” It’s Burning (German original title: Es brennt) examines the ways violence and discrimination have morphed and reemerged in German history. Amal, her husband Omar, and their son Ahmad are a happy, peaceful, German-born Arab family, but their stable routine is disrupted when Amal and Ahmad are racially abused at their local playground. Though Amal tries to put the incident out of her mind, a court summons forces her to confront their abuser and changes the family forever. Based on real events, this surprising debut feature film is as powerful as it is poetic in its indictment of everyday racism in Germany.
 

“Don’t be fooled by the slow, elegant, lingering shots and subdued arthouse feel of this film. It packs a punch as guttural as the shocking ending of George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead.” (Raindance Film Festival)

It’s Burning
Dir. Erol Afşin
Germany, 2022
89 min.
With Halima Ilter, Kida Khodr Ramadan, Nicolas Garin, Emir Kadir Taskin

Erol Afşin was born in Adana, Turkey and moved to Germany at the age of 19 to pursue his passion for the arts. Trained as an actor, he has performed in numerous German and international theater and film productions, including the award-winning film Mustang by Deniz Gamze Ergüven, which was nominated for Best International Film at the 2016 Academy Awards. Afşin made his first short film, The Way, in 2015. It’s Burning is his first feature-length film.