Generation 14plus Title ‘Elbow,’ From ‘Dil Leyla’ Director Aslı Ozarslan, Drills Down on Challenges Facing Young Immigrants
variety.comEd Meza @edmezavar Aslı Özarslan’s “Elbogen” (“Elbow”), an adaptation of Fatma Aydemir’s award-winning novel of the same name, tells the story of Hazal (played by Melia Kara), a young woman in Berlin struggling to find a job and start a life of her own.
After a violent incident on her 18th birthday, she flees to Istanbul, a strange city in a country she doesn’t know and where she is forced to survive.
Produced by Jamila Wenske‘s Berlin-based Achtung Panda!, the film premieres in the Berlinale’s Generation 14plus. Özarslan’s past works include the 2016 documentary “Dil Leyla,” about a young Kurdish-German woman who is elected mayor of Cizre, a Turkish city on the border with Syria.
The Berlin native spoke with Variety about her new film and the challenges facing young people of immigrant backgrounds – something with which she is very familiar. What interested you most about Fatma Aydemir’s novel? It was clearly the character Hazal.
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