Heimat in the age of transnational migration
Panel 'Unheimliche Sehnsucht nach Heimat' at WDR Heimat Symposium - October 2009
Dr Daniela Berghahn, leader of the Migrant and Diasporic Cinema Network, and Network participant Professor Carrie Tarr, were invited by the WDR (West German Broadcasting Corporation) to explore the concept of Heimat at a public symposium, held at the Museum Ludwig, Cologne’s equivalent of the Tate Modern, on 16 and 17 October 2009. Daniela Berghahn will also feature in a television programme entitled ‘Plötzlich so viel Heimat’ (Suddenly so much Heimat), broadcast by the WDR during the ‘Long Night of the Heimatfilm’ on 31 October 2009. She will be discussing the evolution of the Heimatfilm, a quintessentially German film genre, and its recent revival in the age of transnational migration.
The WDR Symposium ‘Plötzlich so viel Heimat: Identität im Wandel in Film, Kultur und Gesellschaft’ (Suddenly so much Heimat: Changing Identity in Film, Culture and Society) was initiated Dr Gualtiero Zambonini, the WDR’s Commissioner for Integration and Cultural Diversity, and Michael André, Head of Television Drama and Film. The event brought together filmmakers, journalists, film critics, policy makers and international film scholars. One of the key questions was what Heimat means in context of transnationalism and globalisation.
In conjunction with the WDR Heimat Symposium, the Cologne-based television station is screening a series of feature films, documentaries and television dramas that engage with HeimatGefühle (HeimatFeelings), as the series is called. Several of these films explore the relationship between migration and homeland and include Fatih Akin’s feature Solino (2002), his documentary Wir haben vergessen zurückzukehren/We forgot to return (2000), as well as Helma Sanders-Brahms Shirin’s Hochzeit/Shirin’s Wedding (1976). The selection of films, which will be shown by the WDR between 21 October and 26 November 2009, is indicative of the WDR’s commitment to intercultural dialogue. Rather than inviting German audiences to nostalgically indulge in old time classics of the 1950s Heimatfilm genre, HeimatFeelings promotes a concept of Heimat which explicitly supports the WDR’s multicultural and integrationist agenda. Heimat may be a German word but in the age of transnational migration, it has gained new meanings for the citizens of plural worlds.
Posted by Daniela Berghahn on 01 Nov 2009 •