NY Times: Turkish-German Artists Thrive in Their Adopted Land

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Turkish-German Artists Thrive in Their Adopted Land

BERLIN, Jan. 7 — The Turkish-German filmmaker Zuli Aladag sat in a cafe the other day, his curly black hair just visible under a baseball cap, and recalled his youth, when he was the only foreigner in a children's orchestra in southern Germany.

"I was accepted as the exception," said Mr. Aladag, who played the clarinet and trumpet. "The reaction was, `You're not as dirty or as ugly or as stupid as the other ones.' I had the experience of racism here — that of people telling you the others are asses, but not you.

"But this all changed when I went to university," said Mr. Aladag, a 35-year-old of Kurdish-Turkish origin who is an emerging director in German film. "Things have changed in Germany. There's a lot more acceptance here."

Mr. Aladag and his peers belong to a wellspring of mostly third-generation Turks exploding onto the German arts scene. It includes the more established filmmaker Fatih Akin ("Short Sharp Shock," "In July," "Solino"); the novelist and actress Emine Sevgi Ozdamar ("Life Is a Caravansary"); a television comedian, Kaya Yanar; and hip-hop artists like Kool Savas, among others.

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Turkish-German Artists Thrive in Their Adopted Land

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