Documentaries

Mein Vater, der Türke / My Father, The Turk

Contact Information

Filmmaker Marcus Attila Vetter was born in western Germany to a German mother and absent Turkish father in the 1960s. Raised without the presence of a paternal figure, the only childhood connection that Vetter had to his Turkish half was his middle name, Attila, and an aged photograph of his parents together before his birth.  His parents’ love affair begins in Stuttgart. At a time of intense societal antagonism towards immigrant Turks, the couple defiantly maintains their relationship and Gerlinde becomes pregnant. After revealing that he has a wife and daughter in Turkey, Cahit leaves. Gerlinde is left alone in Germany, abandoned not only by her partner, but also by her traditional family who has denounced her relationship with a Turk. Seven years later Cahit comes back to meet his son but is rejected by his former lover. Vetter learns the details of his parents’ relationship when he is 38 years old. He decides to find his father in Turkey and this film is the documentation of the journey. This autobiographical documentary conveys the consequences of abandoned love as well as the cultural realities and moral values that direct one’s fate.

From The Press

An autobiographical film about a German-Turkish encounter between father and son after over 30 years. The result is a multi-faceted, riveting dialogue not only between father and son but above all, between very diverse cultures. My Father the Turk eschews the settling of old scores; instead it presents in subtle nuances the fate of a family that ranges far beyond the purely personal. Marcus Vetter and Ariane Riecker (co-writers and directors) follow the numerous aspects of this personal family drama in such detail that the gripping story expands into a tightly-crafted portrait of customs and morals.
(Funkkorrespondenz, August 4, 2006).

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