THE INVITEES

They were invited to rebuild the country; a fact often overlooked regarding the migrant workers who came to West Germany as a result of the recruitment agreement. Over the years, a culture of remembrance largely based on inherited assumptions has developed around the history of the so-called “guest workers”, thus making a nuanced understanding of past and present events difficult. Against this backdrop, The Invitees takes the 60th anniversary of the recruitment agreement between Turkey and Germany as a call to rethink the history of labor migration. Films, discussions and lectures, alongside informal knowledge and post-migrant perspectives, will allow for a critical examination of the recurring narratives and persistent image politics relating to the so-called guest workers. Over eight evenings, the programme will bring together invited experts, feature and documentary films, educational films, and film material from the DOMiD archive (Documentation Center and Museum of Migration to Germany) and other archives. In these ways an important contribution to the process of transnational remembrance will be made, one that does justice to the significance of interwoven cultures of remembrance and presents identificatory ties that go beyond the nation-state.

In cooperation with DOMiD (Documentation Center and Museum of Migration to Germany).

Funded by the Program for the Promotion of Contemporary History and Remembrance Culture Projects of the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe and the Programm NEUSTART des Bundesverband Soziokultur im Programmteil kulturelle und soziokulturelle Programmarbeit.

Can Sungu is a freelance artist, curator and researcher. He studied film, interdisciplinary arts and visual communication design in Istanbul and Berlin. He gave lectures on film and video production, curated various programs and events on film and migration, and took part in numerous exhibitions. He has worked as a juror and consultant for the Berlinale Forum, International Short Film Festival Oberhausen and the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program, among others. He is co-founder and artistic director of bi‘bak and Sinema Transtopia in Berlin. Since 2023 he is curator for filmic practices at HKW in Berlin.