akademie der autodidakten
Fake Fiction Real is an experimental documentary about young people from a Turkish background in Berlin. Director Neco Çelik and a group of local adolescents explored Kreuzberg 36 in search of the places they regard as central to their sense of belonging and identity. „Youngsters these days tend to feel at home in many different contexts“, says Celik, “but that doesn’t make the search for their own identity any easier.” Exclusion mechanisms, images of supposed enemies, and the creation of opposing camps both on the German and non-German side are all too frequent experiences.
Young people from a Turkish background are often caught between extremes: a society that feigns to be open and enlightened but steadfastly refuses to accept second and third generation migrants as equal members of society on the one hand, and the world of their parents and traditions on the other.
Fake Fiction Real is no reportage but an experimental film, a mix of real and staged scenes that explore the complex theme of postmigrant identity through the places that are central to the quest of its protagonists.
Neco Çelik grew up in Kreuzberg and has been a media educator at the youth centre Naunynritze, for the past 15 years. He has directed several cinema and TV films including Alltag (2002) and Urban Guerillas (2003). His stage debut Schwarze Jungfrauen by Zaimoğlu/Senkel created a furore in 2006; in 2007 he received a scholarship from the Junge Akademie der Künste. Director of many productions at theatres including Ballhaus Naunynstraße, HAU 1 and the Munich Kammerspiele, his most recent production in 2010 was a stage version of Gegen die Wand by Fatih Akın.