KINO - Wir sind jung, wir sind stark (We Are Young. We Are Strong)

The Lichtenhagen neighborhood in the city of Rostock, in 1992. Three years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. In a drab urban housing block, unemployed youth people fight boredom. A group organised around Stefan, the son of a local politician, constantly taunts the police and for-eigners. The police no longer knows what to do and decides to evacuate the gypsies from the overcrowded asylum where they’re living, but many Vietnamese families remain, including the young Lien. The stories of all these people converge and culminate in a night of violence: the riots in front of the reception centre for asylum seekers flare up in front of the television camer-as - and under the eyes of a curious crowd that applauds what they’re seeing.In Wir sind jung, wir sind stark, the young director Burhan Qurbani draws a picture of a youth without prospects, in the middle of the desolate sadness of residential housing blocks, in the post-GDR period. Himself the son of Afghan immigrants, Qurbani considers that his second film consciously omits any political message, and instead expresses his frustration "in an era marked by social and political reorientation and a vacuum". 

Dir.Burhan QurbaniGermany, 2013/2014| 128 MinPortuguese subtitles (BR)

Burhan Qurbai was born in 1980. Son of immigrants from Afghanistan, he studied filmmaking at the Baden-Württemberg Film Academy. His short films have received numerous awards, includ-ing the Best Cinematography Award for the movie Illusion (Portuguese title: Ilusão, 2007). His first film Shahada screened in competition at the Berlin Film Festival in 2010. His second film Qurbani, Wir sind jung. Wir sind stark [We are young, we are strong] was awarded the Bild-Kunst Incentive Award for Best Wardrobe and Best Set Photography.

Image: WIR SIND JUNG. WIR SIND STARK. © Stephan Rabold/ teamWorx Television & Film GmbH