In an effort to rebuild its economy, the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG/West Germany) launched a labor program in 1955 that allowed migrants to temporarily live and work there. As the program developed, so-called guest workers arrived from Italy, Spain, Greece, Turkey, Morocco, South Korea, Portugal, Tunisia, and Yugoslavia. Similarly, in 1967, the German Democratic Republic (GDR/East Germany) started a program that drew so-called contract workers from other socialist countries, such as Hungary, Algeria, Cuba, Mozambique, Vietnam, and Angola. Although the programs were framed as mutually beneficial for the participants and the West and East German economies, migrant laborers faced ostracization, strict rules, poor housing and working conditions, and physical violence.

The two films being shown document and archive the lives of migrants and reveal their experiences of exploitation, neglect, and erasure.

Angelika Nguyen’s Brotherland Has Burned Down (1991; original German title: Bruderland ist abgebrannt) examines the lives of Vietnamese migrants in the GDR before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Through firsthand accounts and documentary footage, the film reveals how they were targets of systemic and overt racism, including abrupt deportations after the wall opened.

Pınar Öğrenci’s Good Luck in Germany (2024; original German title: Glück Auf in Deutschland) focuses on the lives of migrants from Turkey and the mining industry in the FRG’s Ruhr region. Primarily composed of the limited images Öğrenci found in regional archives of immigrant workers from Turkey, the film also includes historical oral testimonies and interviews conducted by the artist that emphasize the hardships faced by female migrants in the domestic sphere as well as the brutal conditions that miners worked in. For more on Öğrenci’s work, visit the artist’s website: https://pinarogrenci.com/