FREE ON YOUTUBE Yilmaz Güney - The herd

FREE ON YOUTUBE  The Herd is the story of the Kurdish people. Only nobody was allowed to speak Kurdish, otherwise he would have been thrown into prison. That was the situation in Turkey in 1978, in order not to glorify the past. Here in Kreuzberg whole corners are assigned. Turkish, Kurdish or sometimes Zaza Kurdish. The director Yilmaz Güney was a bit of everything. At some point his wife came to our video store. She discovered the subject in the author's sorting with her husband's work. Even with English subtitles. Mrs. Güney noticed that bootlegs are a good thing after all. Much better than the original DVD editions that don't have subtitles! (Of course I sank into the ground with shame). Anyway, Güney was exposed to state dogma all his life. "There are no Kurds". "There is no Kurdish language". One can imagine how whole families grew up up uprooted. Güney must have decided to make films against this background. He had been arrested several times. Our former colleague from the video store, Nazli, told me that he even fled prison. In his most famous film, he filmed it. Güney escaped in 1981. He left Turkey. For us in the West, Güney is the epitome of what we understand as "Third Cinema". The third cinema, not the first one from Hollywood and also not the second art cinema. The "third cinema" has a political effect. In The Herd, Berivan (Melike Demirag ) is married to Sivan (Tarik Akan) to end a long family feud. It does not succeed. Berivan and Sivan flee to Istanbul, hosted by the brother who embodies the political consciousness of the film. The rich in Istanbul and the rich at home are the same, he recognizes. Only those who exploit you can afford to live here. Doesn't that slowly also apply to Berlin? In The Herd only sheep thieves and sheep dealers drive cars. Prosperity is always confronted with poverty. The majority will never share in prosperity. The effect of The Herd in Turkey was brilliant: Güney's films were censored. The cinema that The Herd showed was bombed. The most fundamental contradiction The Herd reveals is the reactionary attitude of those who are exploited. To understand this, one afternoon before the late afternoon is enough. The political debates of my bouncers, for example, are revealing. Berivan is the only one to perish. She falls ill. The Herd gives us the only possible response: organised political action to give the dispossessed a perspective of justice.