SALAAM ALEYKUM COPENHAGEN
Slovakia/Slovenia/Denmark, 2008, 19 min
Sašo Niskač
29.01.2010 22:20
Salaam Aleykum Copenhagen is a short documentary about Haluk, Allan and Iman – two young boys and a girl with Turkish, Kurdish, Lebanese and Danish backgrounds living in Copenhagen. How do they confront their lives with the atmosphere of Copenhagen, their home? The film is a portrait of their attitudes towards the questions of immigration and integration, their daily problems and challenges, family values, their view on Danish society and Copenhagen itself. While presenting their worlds they are opening the doors towards understanding of Copenhagen itself. They are part of Copenhagen and Copenhagen is part of them.
“...It is hard and then people say: you are well integrated, and I think: what is “well integrated”? Is it when Danes feel I am well integrated or the immigrants feel I am well integrated? Or is it when I myself feel that now I can tackle the two cultures?”...”I have learned to drink my girlfriend’s homeopathic drops, medicine, and she drinks my Kurdish tea each day, and that is for example integration. But I am tired of the word ‘integration’.”
Awards: Special Jury Mention, Platforma Video8 Fil Festival, November 2008, Athens, Greece; selected for The Best of Kino OTOK Film Festival - Video na Plazi, october 2009, Izola, Slovenia
Language of dialogues: Danish
Language of subtitles: English
Side effects: Portrait of a young artist in Lahore
The Klamath River of Oregon and California is one of the most important salmon runs in the United States. While diminished over the past 100 years, it still supports an abudance of life and diverse economies struggling over its future course. This is a film about the Indian tribes of the river ecosystem – what the Klamath means to them and how they draw on traditional and modern resources to restore its strenght, beauty and balance. The film focuses on the Klamath River and the Indian tribes of the lower basin – the Yurok, Hoopa and Karuk. Yet this story has implications for any number of river ecosystems and indigenous peoples around the world. Through the Indian tribes of the Lower Klamath, the film reminds us how the health of a people and the health of its lands are integrally linked.