UNSER NAME IST AUSLÄNDER – OUR NAME IS FOREIGNER
Selin Besili | Switzerland 2024 | 21 min. | Kurdish, Schwiss German, Turkish with engl. subtitles
MONDAY, 12.05. | 5 pm
De France, Saal 1 | TICKETS
Part of the Short Film Program ESSA II
International premiere
In presence of Selin Besili
Hêlîn, Selin, Firat, and Serhat carry their parent’s living room out into the open: first the carpet, then the couch, and finally the hot Çay. Having grown up in central Switzerland, the four siblings reflect on their perceived foreignness in Switzerland and tell stories of growing up with racist experiences and prejudices.
In UNSER NAME IST AUSLÄNDER, Selin Besili creates a cinematic mix of performance and narrative that reveals what it means to feel like a stranger in one’s own country. The result is a new story that confronts one’s own powerlessness and tells of resistance and faith in a better life.
Director: Selin Besili (she/her)
Camera: Sara Čolić (she/her), Lucas Frey (he/him)
Editing: Selin Dettwiler (she/her)
Sound: Arlind Sermaxhaj (he/him)
Production: Volko Kamensky (he/him), Hochschule Luzern – Design Film Kunst
Production Design: Sureja Redžić (she/her)
presented by
SCREENINGS & AWARDS
Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur (Switzerland, 2024)
Orient Express Film Festival (Switzerland, 2024)
Festival International du Film de Fribourg (Switzerland, 2025)
Innerschweizer Filmpreis in der Kategorie ‚Abschlussfilm‘ (Central Swiss Film Award inthe Category ‚Graduation Film‘, Switzerland, 2025)
BIOGRAPHY
Born 1995 in Switzerland to Kurdish parents. In 2016 she completed the Preliminary Course at the Zurich University of the Arts. She graduated in 2024 with a Bachelor‘s degree in Video with focus on directing from the Lucerne School of Design, Film and Art .
