Hülya is a young German-Turkish writer. Several years after the death of her father, she decides to write a novel about him. In order to get to know him better, she travels to Damal, the place where her father was born and grew up. She meets the people from his youth and reconstructs his life there - at school, at home and in the expansive landscape around the village. While she observes, she does not always get an equally positive picture of her father and the dramatic events that shaped his life and hers. Confusing memories fall into place. At the same time, present, past, reality and fantasy start mingling increasingly naturally and it becomes more and more clear that memory is a far-from-infallible instrument. Nature, idyllically one time and mercilessly next, forms the atmospheric decor for this reflection on the value of family bonds, love and honour.
Senay is a willful eleven year old girl in Hamburg who's Turkish father has just died. The only friend responding to the news about her father is a gay Turkish cabaret singer, Zeki. Together they travel through Europe in search of the orphan girl's mother, Cicek, who left at childbirth and whom Zeki represents as Senay's aunt.
A film crew from Germany, filming in a remote village in northeastern Turkey, interviews an elderly Kurdish woman. She performs an ancient ritual to keep alive the memory of the son she lost years ago. The young woman, who helps the German crew with the Kurdish translation, is also the caretaker of seven-year-old Melek. Melek's father is a member of a shadowy organization whose true purpose is unclear. The result of all these people coming together will be devastating.
Alice is 16 years old and an introverted girl with a special ability: she hears extraordinarily well. When her mother sends her to a Catholic foster home, she remains an outsider in a group of self-confident teenage girls. Only Berivan, a Kurdish refugee who seeks for asylum in Germany, tries to learn more about Alice. They finally become close friends, but Berivan's relationship to an Albanian guy destroys the girls' friendship
The Kurdish province Van is famous for its unique cats, which are the cultural symbol of the Kurds, Turks and the Armenians. Van was the historical home of the Armenians until 1915 - the year of the genocide. Nowadays all that remains are the ruins of countless churches and a small number of inhabitants with Armenian roots, though most of them are scared to admit this. The 34-year-old Ali speaks openly about his Armenian grandmother Piroze. He accompanies us through the world of the residents, one that is filled with taboos, distrust and fear. The film tracks down the traces of this cruel history and shows that, "the past is never dead, it is not even past." (W.Faulkner)
Tatort is a long-running German/Austrian/Swiss, crime television series set in various parts of these countries. The show is broadcast on the channels of ARD in Germany, ORF in Austria and SF1 in Switzerland.
