Powerful debut feature based on real events
The German Film Office is pleased to host a special screening of
It’s Burning, with director Erol Afşin in attendance. Presented in collaboration with Filmfest München, as part of the Goethe-Institut’s “Longing/Belonging” festival in North America.
Please register to attend.
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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
Part of the Festival “Longing / Belonging”
Stories of migration characterize our modern societies, in which people from different cultural backgrounds search for belonging. Cultural diversity is celebrated on the one hand, but at the same time new social boundaries are emerging. The Goethe-Institut's “Longing/Belonging” festival presents artistic contributions and social discourses from Germany and North America.
Festival Website ➜
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.
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