All around the world: Barbro Karabuda

Barnet (The Baby)
Barbro Karabuda, Sweden 1973, 65 min., OV with English subtitles. Language: Turkish

Adapted from a story of the same name by Yaşar Kemal, Barnet takes up the tale of an impoverished villager and his wife. The frail young woman who has given birth at home is sick and debilitated. Soon, she succumbs to the harsh conditions, leaving her husband alone with the baby. This is the story of a husband (a remarkable performance by Tuncel Kurtiz) who knocks on every door to keep his wife and baby alive. The film was shot by a high-profile Swedish and Turkish cast in Algeria due to the fraught political situation prevailing in Turkey at the time.

Permission i Bangkok : Barbro Karabuda träffar USA-soldater från Vietnam (Leave in Bangkok: Barbro Karabuda meets US soldiers from Vietnam)
Barbro Karabuda, Sweden 1968, 14 min., OV with English subtitles. Languages: English, Swedish.

The short newsreel shot for Swedish TV is based on interviews with US soldiers that are fighting in Vietnam. At a noisy nightclub, Karabuda repeatedly asks the same simple question, “Why do you fight in Vietnam?”. The atmosphere and the answers are revealing. 

Barbro Karabuda (1935-2017) directed numerous documentaries for TV with her cameraman husband, Güneş Karabuda. Her films include Ambassaden (1974), Svartskallen (1981), and Violet Bay (1991).