YOUR STREET/DEINE STRASSE

Documentary Short, 7:27 min., Color, Switzerland 2020, German with English or French subtitles

I’m not good at selling stuff. So this page may not seem loud or flashy enough. You will find some important information about the film and its background, nothing more. The film screened at many International festivals, won several awards and is streamed as part of THE NEW YORKER DOCUMENTARY. (click here to see full film)

Beyond that I trust completely in my film, which tells everything that needs to be told. If you have further questions, please contact me. I will be happy to answer you.

Watch YOUR STREET on the youtube channel of THE NEW YORKER here.

When A Memorial Is Placed Out Of Sight
by Fabrice Robinet for THE NEW YORKER

Synopsis
A street in the industrial area of Bonn, Germany, faceless, unobtrusive, unfinished. Warehouses, construction sites and car washes dominate. But little by little, the grey present of the street is being charged with its past, which is linked to one of the most tragic episodes in the history of reunified Germany. Are public memorials collective remembrance or collective repression?

Crew

Voice: Sibylle Berg

Cinematographer: Felix von Muralt

Editor: Simon Gutknecht

Sound Design: Felix Bussmann

Colorist: Ramón Königshausen

Writer, Director, Producer: Güzin Kar

Publicist

Adam J. Segal, The 2050 Group – Publicity

(212) 642-4317 (Office) • (202) 422-4673 (Cell) • adam@the2050group.com

Awards

  • Academy Award-qualifying Grand Prize for Documentary Short at Indy Shorts International Festival by Heartland
  • Swiss Film Award for Best Short Film
  • Audience Award at Short Film Festival Hamburg
  • Cinema Eye Honors Shorts List

Festivals (a selection)

  • Berlinale Shorts Competition
  • AFI FEST
  • Docaviv – The International Documentary Film Festival Tel Aviv
  • Indy Shorts Film Festival Presented by Heartland
  • Locarno
  • MIFF Melbourne
  • Cork International Film Festival
  • Short Film Festival KFF Hamburg
  • Vienna Shorts
  • VIFF Vancouver
  • Guanajuato
  • GwangHwaMun Short Film Festival
  • Pittsburgh Shorts
  • Solothurn
  • Filmkunstwerk Schwerin

Director’s Note
When I started working on YOUR STREET/DEINE STRASSE two years ago, I never expected that this little film would take this big journey around the world. I financed the film myself and paid my team from my private money. I had to make this film to be able to go on, in life and in art.

I’ve been making feature films for more than 20 years and am returning to short film with this project, as this allows me to experiment with new forms of storytelling. In YOUR STREET, I use an example from Germany to explore the question of what kind of remembrance culture a society practices: Whom or what do we consider worth remembering, in which way, and what is the sense of a public memorial? Two years ago, I happened to discover on Google Maps a street in the industrial site of Bonn, Germany, that has a Turkish name. As a Swiss woman of Turkish origin who studied in Germany, I know that German streets are very rarely named after Turks. The name of this street vaguely reminded me of something painful that I had repressed for decades. My research began and I quickly found out that it was not only me who had been caught between remembering and forgetting. In the winter of 2019, I set out for the city of Bonn and walked down the street alone for days, using my iPhone to search for images that triggered me. Later, I went back to the street with cinematographer Felix von Muralt to shoot the final images. The editor Simon Gutknecht and I put these images together in countless versions, experimenting with music and sounds, until we decided on the most minimalist form. The result is a filmic requiem, consisting only of wide shots and a narration to which award-winning writer and playwright Sibylle Berg lent her unique voice.

© 2023 Güzin Kar – all rights reserved