Films A-Z
Tobacco Girl
Tabakmädchen
Biljana Garvanlieva / Germany / 2009 / 30 min.
14-year-old Mümine lives high up in the Macedonian mountains in the village of Kodzalija. Her family makes its living growing tobacco. They belong to the local Turkish minority and they meticulously observe their traditions. According to these customs, they can demand money from the prospective suitor of one of their daughters in return for the girl. Consequently, Mümine's parents are duly looking forward to the marriage of their daughters. But Mümine is not interested in such an arrangement. Her intended husband is poor and anyhow she would prefer to go to the city to study at secondary school. This gently flowing film is permeated with the striking, sometimes even grotesque, contrasts between traditions and the modern way of life, such as when Mümine's family take a brand new cooker home from the city on a tractor, or cannot move into a newly built house with Perspex windows before performing an animal sacrifice ritual. Biljana Garvanlieva's refreshing documentary about interweaving the old and the new is pleasingly underscored with ethnic music.
» Trailer