Aprilkinder on AllMovie

Aprilkinder refers to the children of the Turkish guest workers in Germany, most of whom are born in April simply because they are conceived in July during the father's annual trip back to Turkey. Cem works in a sausage factory to support the family. His brother Mehmet sees dealing drugs as his best chance in life, while his sister Dilan is trying hard to seduce Mehmet's shy friend, Arif. When the father brought his children to Germany from the Kurdish part of Turkey fifteen years ago, he excepted a different kind of life. But now he is too disillusioned to care; he is sick and has drawn into an internal exile. The mother tries to hold the family together as she prepares to marry off Cem to a cousin who is to be smuggled into Germany illegally. But Cem is in love with Kim, a prostitute. Based partly on the experiences of director Yüksel Yavuz, who is a second-generation Turkish immigrant in Germany, Aprilkinder is a realistic account of the disillusioned lives of immigrants estranged from their own country and yet always strangers in their adopted land. Aprilkinder was screened as part of the New German Films at the 49th International Berlin Film Festival, 1999.