Year of release: 2008
Courtesy of Wildbunch Distribution, © Carole Bellaïche
Paying homage to Yasujiro Ozu's Late Spring, a melodrama about a father and daughter whose close and loving relationship is sacrified for the sake of social conventions, 35 Shots of Rum centres on a similarly close father-daughter bond but lacks the melodramatic affect and concludes on a more optimistic note.
Filed under: Coming of age | Daughters | Fathers
Year of release: 2011
On 10 September, 1964, Germany’s one-millionth ‘guest worker’ was welcomed. Spanning a period of no less than forty-five years, this film by sisters Yasemin Samdereli (director) and Nesrin Samdereli (screenplay) tells the story of guest worker number one-million-and-one – a man named Hüseyin Yilmaz and his family.
Filed under: Family memories | Fathers | Journey | Mothers | Turkish German
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: 2007
Boiled down from a large literary work, though not a literary film, Sarah Gavron's Brick Lane is based on Monica Ali's prize-winning novel and resulted in an unnecessary flurry when the Bangladeshi community in the eponymous area of east London prevented it from being shot there. It's a small, touching picture about 17-year-old Nazneen (Tannishtha Chatterjee) being sent from her Bangladeshi village to marry a pompous, insensitive, self-deceiving older man in London. She bears him a son who dies, and two daughters, and much of the movie takes place in her early 30s when she's trying to break out of her housebound existence, get over her homesickness and come to terms with exile.
Filed under: Asian British | Daughters | Fathers | Mothers
Year of release: 2007
When Slimane, a North African shipyard worker in the French Mediterranean town of Sète, is pushed into early retirement, he decides to use the redundancy money to buy an old boat in the harbour and open a couscous restaurant. The film charts the various obstacles he encounters and the support his extended family and friends provide along the way.
Filed under: Daughters | Ethnic food | Fathers | Maghrebi French
Year of release: 1999
Can and his girlfriend Jale live with their young daughter, Meral, in Berlin-Schöneberg. Can is a small-time dealer and errand-boy for drug boss Hakan, who has to keep his customers supplied within his narrowly staked out territory.
Filed under: Crime | Fathers | Turkish German
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: 1999
Salford, 1971. Proud Pakistani chip shop owner George Khan lives in a terraced house with his white wife Ella and their seven children. Determined to raise them as traditional Muslims, George sends sons Nazir, Abdul, Tariq, Saleem, Maneer and Sajid to the mosque and makes daughter Meenah dress in saris. However the kids will not submit quietly.
Filed under: Asian British | Coming of age | Fathers | Mothers | Patriarchy | Queer diaspora | Religion
Year of release: 2002
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: Coming of age | Crime | Fathers | Sons | Turkish German
Year of release: 2005
Courtesy of Sandhya Suri
I for India is a chronicle of immigration in Britain, from the Sixties to the present day, as seen through the eyes of one Asian family and their movie camera.
Filed under: Asian British | Daughters | Documentary | Family memories | Fathers