Year of release: 2004
Casim, a young second-generation Scottish-Pakistani man falls in love with Roisin, an Irish music teacher at his sister's school. But Casim is expected to marry a cousin from Pakistan and, despite being passionately in love with Roisin, feels initially unable to renege on the arrangement his parents made out of loyalty to his family.
Filed under: Asian British | Inter-ethnic romance | Wedding / Marriage
Year of release: 1998
The film depicts the daily life of a Kurdish German family in Hamburg. Cem, one of sons, earns his living in a slaughterhouse and has a secret love affair with a German prostitute.
Filed under: Turkish German | Wedding / Marriage
Year of release: 2002
Jess's (Parminder Nagra) sartorial transformation
In Hounslow, west London. 18 year old Jess Bhamra dreams of playing professional football like her idol David Beckham, but her Punjabi Sikh parents have more conventional plans for her: a law degree and marriage. Jules, a white female striker, spots Jess playing park football and invites her to join the local women's team.
Filed under: Asian British | Coming of age | Fathers | Mothers | Wedding / Marriage
Year of release: 2004
Shots of an aeroplane in the opening sequence mark the arrival of the UK-based NRI Balraj and his American friend Darcy, two single men in possession of a good fortune and in want of a wife, to Armitsar. Like Austen’s Mr and Mrs Bennet, Chadha’s Mr and Mrs Bakshi are looking for eligible suitors for their four daughters, Jaya, Lalita, Maya and Lakhi. An Indian wedding (the first of a total of four featured in the film) provides the social setting where Lalita and Darcy, Jaya and Balraj first meet. In keeping with the source novel and the generic conventions of the romantic comedy, the paths of their courtships are rocky. However, it is not the parents’ objection to the inter-ethnic romance the couple has to overcome. Admittedly, Darcy has to be educated in all things Indian – be it dancing, drumming or even keeping his Indian-style trousers from falling down – to recognise that his ethnic snobbery and arrogance vis à vis ‘Hicksville, India’, as he derogatively calls Amritsar, are out of place before he is worthy of the beautiful bride Lalita. In all other respects, Bride and Prejudice downplays the cultural difference, emphasising instead the commonalities between Indian and Western cultures. Lalita is every bit as independent and assertive as any Western woman and, except for the fact that she wears stunning saris (as well as Western clothes), has little in common with idealised notions of traditional Indian femininity promoted by Bollywood.
Filed under: Asian British | Inter-ethnic romance | Wedding / Marriage
Year of release: 1995
Simran and Raj, both NRIs brought up in Britain, meet and fall in love on a grand European tour. However, Simran is promised in marriage to the son of a family friend who lives in Punjab. Simran's father, Chowdary Baldev Singh, who prides himself on having retained his cultural values while making a living as a small shop owner in London, is intent on strengthening the bonds with his country of origin by arranging a marriage between his daughter Simran and the son of a family friend, Kuljeet, in Punjab, India.
Filed under: Fathers | Patriarchy | South Asian diaspora | Wedding / Marriage
Year of release: 1995
Züli Aladag's feature film debut Elephant Heart is a coming-of-age story about a young boxer in the amateur league, who dreams of going professional but has to learn what sacrifices he has to make if he wants to reaslise his ambition. At the centre of the strory is Marco - played by Germany's rising star Daniela Brühl (Good Bye, Lenin! and The Edukators) - a young amateur boxer searching for his own identity.
Filed under: Maghrebi French | Wedding / Marriage
Year of release: 1991
In this film about the tragic consequences of arranged marriage, Metin, a young man of Kurdish origin is lured back from Germany, where he has found work and a blonde German girlfriend, to his native village in rural Anatolia, under the pretext that his mother is dying.
Filed under: Patriarchy | Turkish German | Wedding / Marriage
Year of release: 2009
Courtesy of Luna Film and Cinemendo, © Peter Nix
Set in contemporary Berlin, the multi-strand narrative of Evet, I Do features four inter-ethnic romances between Turkish-German, Kurdish-German, Turkish, gay and heterosexual couples all of whom want to marry one another.
Filed under: Inter-ethnic romance | Turkish German | Wedding / Marriage
Year of release: 2004
Courtesy of WÜSTE Film © Kerstin Stelter
The film tells the story of Cahit, a self-destructive, alcoholic, cocaine-sniffing, 44 year-old Turk living in Hamburg and the 20 year-old, beautiful Turkish girl Sibel.
Filed under: Journey | Patriarchy | Turkish German | Wedding / Marriage
Year of release: 2003
Set in New York's NRI community, the film centres on a love triangle involving Naina, Aman and Rohit. Aman, who is suffereing from a fatal heart condition tries to inspire everyone around him to enjoy life since 'tomorrow may never come'.
Filed under: Secrets | South Asian diaspora | Wedding / Marriage