Two young orphans, Dana and his younger brother Zana, are looking for a better life: It’s Iraqi Kurdistan in the 1990s and Saddam Hussein is still in power. After watching a part of Richard Donner’s Superman from the roof of the cinema, the two boys, in particular Zana, are inspired by the superhero and decide to go to America, “to the big city where superman lives.” The older brother Dana is initially reluctant, but he soon agrees for another reason: he wants to follow Helliya’s family after falling in love with her. The conflict between the two brothers, who are completely dependent on one another, is discernable and hints at a disappointing end to their journey. Zana and Dana’s travels are filled with great adventures, conflicts, and some lonely moments – just what you’d expect from a road movie. Indeed as a children’s film, the story told in BEKAS is not told with a light touch. On the contrary, when the two boys try to cross the border, the film has elements of a thriller.
Director Karzan Kader turned his 2010 award-winning short film of the same name into a feature-length production. Some of Kader’s beautiful landscape shots are strikingly similar but it is in that sameness that the director can portray the deepening bond between the two brothers. It is a rare fortune that a film like BEKAS finds its way into German cinemas.

Rochus Wolff

Translation: Carla MacDougall