Cem Kaya’s dense documentary essay celebrates 60 years of Turkish music in Germany. An alternative post-war history that is at the same time a musical Who’s Who – from Yüksel Özkasap to Derdiyoklar and Muhabbet.
Turkish immigrant Husseyin spends his days in hypnotic routine as a “guest worker” in ‘70s West Berlin, living in a small, shared apartment and commuting daily to his job at a factory pressing machine parts. Diligently saving up his wages he hopes to one day marry and buy a house back home, but his immediate future in Berlin is clouded by indignities at the hands of racist coworkers and botched attempts at romantic intimacy. With only his fellow immigrant housemates as patchwork community, Husseyin perseveres with a quiet dignity in the face of an alienating country.
Follows the life of a Turkish woman living and working in Germany.
The story of two workers who returned from abroad. One of them wants to find a good job, Adam, and the other one wants to earn money by smuggling, Beli. Between them two there's young woman, Mila, who has had experience with the second one. Running away from the man who is the incarnation of evil for her, she is trying to find happiness and peace with another one in vain.
Tenants of one old building in the centre of Münich are featured in this film: most of them are foreigners who work in Germany as "guest workers" (Yugoslavs, Italians, Turks, Greeks etc.). In their mother tongue, each of them tells who he or she is, and briefly talks about their major worries, new hopes and plans for the future.
A Croatian guest worker who worked in Germany for many years, builds a house and a workshop for his 20 year old son back in their country of origin. However the son plans to marry his German girlfriend, and doesn't even think of returning to their land.
The rut of Dalmatian hinterland changes with the arrival of returning guest workers, and things they bring along: cars, radios and new way of life.
They leave their home country with the intention of working in Germany for a year or two, hoping that this time will be enough to bring them the prosperity they long for. Then they realize that the time was not enough and they set a new deadline. This is how most ‘guest workers’ begin to experience the rupture of a life whose planning overwhelms them. One of them: Mehmet Turan.