Film Archive
Aprilchildren, The (Aprilkinder)
Cem, Mehmet and Dilan are brothers and sisters. Their father brought them and their mother to Germany from Turkish Kurdistan fifteen years ago. Cem, the eldest, works in a sausage factory and has long been the right age to marry, according to his parents. He has been promised since childhood to a cousin who still lives in Kurdistan; however, until now, he had suppressed the thought of a final commitment. Then he falls in love with the German prostitute Kim in a Turkish night club...Cem's younger brother, Mehmet, sees his chance with his friend Arif to land "the big coup" in dealing with drugs. When Arif falls in love with Mehmet's little sister Dilan, Mehmet takes his new job even more seriously...At the same time, their parents' native village in Kurdistan is destroyed: a reason for them to begin preparations for Cem's wedding and to bring the cousin to Germany. Cem, who loves Kim, is faced by a conflict....
Yueksel Yavuz was born in Karakocan/Turkey in 1964 and moved to Germany in 1980 where he studied Economics and Sociology in Hamburg from 1986-1989. He has been involved in the film industry since 1990 and studied Visual Communication at Hamburg's Academy of Fine Arts from 1992-1996. His films include: Die Hoch-Zeit (video short, 1992), Coromandel (video short, 1993), Freedom Pension (video short, 1993), 100 und eine Mark (short, 1994), Mein Vater, der Gastarbeiter (documentary, 1995), his first feature film The April Children (Aprilkinder, 1998) and A Little Bit of Freedom (Kleine Freiheit, 2002).Category Feature Film Cinema
Year of Production 1998
Director Yueksel Yavuz
Screenplay Britta Ohm, Henner Winckler, Yueksel Yavuz
Director of Photography Ciro Cappellari
Editor Apard Bondy
Producer Thomas Kufus
Production Company zero one film/Berlin, in co-production with ZDF/Mainz
Principal Cast Inga Busch, Buelent Esruenguen, Senem Tepe, Erdal Yildiz
Casting Annette Borgmann
Length 85 min, 2,362 m
Format 35 mm, color, 1:1.66
Original Version German/Turkish/Kurdish
Subtitled Versions German, English
Sound Technology Mono
Festival Screenings Hamburg 1998, Ophuels Festival Saarbruecken 1999 (in competition), Berlin 1999 (German Films)
With backing from FilmFoerderung Hamburg
German Distributor Ventura Film/Berlin
World Sales
TELEPOOL GmbH
Irina Ignatiew
Sonnenstrasse 21
80331 Munich/Germany
phone +49-89-55 87 60
fax +49-89-55 87 62 29
email: cinepool@telepool.de
http://www.telepool.de