ENDED

Written & Directed by Yilmaz Arslan

“Through its careful accumulation of details and the rough truths of its handheld camera movements, FRATRICIDE creates a poetic dimension to balance and illuminate its dire narrative. Xewat Gectan, as Ibo, is heartbreaking in a way that American child actors never manager to be. Rather than confront racial intolerance on the glib level of an American treatment such as CRASH, it cuts straight into the heart, with crisp direction and a profoundly human eloquence.”
– Steve Dollar, The New York Sun

“In its particulars – the director’s feel for character and space, as well as the sterling, naturalistic performances – it’s an absorbing drama about cultural alienation that sheds light on an underclass unfamiliar to most audiences.”
– New York Magazine

“Blending fluid handheld realism with undertones of myth, FRATRICIDE unsentimentally explores the tension between tradition-bound tribalism and modern Western individualism… Mistrustful of politics without lapsing into cynicism, FRATRICIDE exudes a bracingly contemporary sense of genuine uncertainty.”
– Joshua Land, Time Out NY

“Well-wrought, beautifully lensed.” – Ed Halter, Village Voice

“Immediate as an upper cut, yet with a sad undertow of classic timelessness. HAUNTINGLY POWERFUL!”
– Jay Carr, amNY

A prize-winner on the international festival circuit, FRATRICIDE is an elegantly shot, gripping drama of young Kurds and Turks relocated to Germany where they hope to escape the tribal violence and poverty of their homeland. Instead, they find themselves strangers in a strange land: inhabitants of a soulless society where prostitution, street violence and prejudice offer no respite from the past. The friendship that evolves between one young man and the youngster he attempts to mentor suggests that love and loyalty are one’s best hope against bitterness and rage. But the harsh reality of refugee life in Western Europe that FRATRICIDE unflinchingly portrays subverts even their best instincts.

Germany, 2006 • 96 Minutes • In Kurdish, German & Turkish with English Subtitles • Koch Lorber Films