With actors Meret Becker, Hansa Czypionka, Özay Fecht
available on DVD in Germany
This Teutonic film noir received its first U.S. showing at the Seattle Film Festival. Hansa Czypionka plays Kemal Kayankaya, a Turk who speaks no Turkish. Raised in Germany by German parents, he is virtually man without a country, shunned not only by his fellow Turks but by native Germans. So what’s an outsider like Kayankaya to do? He becomes a private eye, of course. Hired to find a missing husband, Kayankaya follows the clue trail to a seedy Frankfurt brothel, where the man he seeks is murdered before his eyes. Refusing to drop the case, Kayankaya sinks deeper and deeper into a morass of drug traffic and police corruption. Happy Birthday, Turk! is based on a Chandleresque novel by Jakob Arjouni.
Links: IMDB, Film Portal
