Kismet Kismet

Premiere of the restored version

The film includes images, expressions and attitudes, which some viewers may find troubling or disturbing. Viewer discretion is advised.

Director İsmet Elçi tells the semi-autobiographical story of Kemal (played by Elçi himself), who negotiates his identity between two cultures (Turkey and Germany), struggling to find a future as a director in the German film industry. 

After being unavailable for over two decades due to a lack of prints, a 2K restoration of the film was made by BASIS BERLIN Postproduktion in 2023 on behalf of the Deutsche Kinemathek. The restoration is based on the original 16mm film and sound negative.

 

İsmet Elçi is a German-Kurdish director, screenwriter and author. He was born in 1964 in the Turkish province of Muş and fled to Berlin in 1979 for political reasons. In 1986, he made his first short film and his semi-autobiographical feature debut Kismet, Kismet.