Beyond dreams: intersecting perspectives of class, gender and migration

Event Information

Beyond Dreams is set in the outskirts of Stockholm, in an area that more often than not is portrayed as grey and hopeless. More often then not, life in below average income areas is depicted as filled with criminality and drugs. The protagonist of Beyond Dreams, Mirja, has just gotten out of jail. In an attempt to step up and take care of her family, Mirja finds out exactly how difficult it is just “just get a job” and make ends meet, as the ends up in precarious employment. But as opposed to films, this is a colorful depiction of the working class and a real girl power films with almost no male characters to support the female leads.

After the film, we will discuss how the working class, gender, and migration intersect and are represented in film and media – both in Germany and in Sweden.

Film

Rojda Sekersöz’s feature-film debut delivers a much-awaited women power punch.

The gang’s friendship and dreams are put to the test when Mirja comes out after having served a prison sentence. Mirja decides to break from her past and try a new life. She faces either being loyal to her sick mother and younger sister or the friends who truly were her family. Beyond Dreams is about who you are expected to be and who you want to be, both in the chosen group and society beyond. A refreshing and funny film about young women.

Panel discussion with: 

Nadire Y. Biskin studied philosophy/ethics and Spanish at the Humboldt University of Berlin. At the moment she makes her internship at two schools. Besides that, she writes for several magazines. She reached with a work about „enhancement and equal opportunities“ the third place by a writing-competition of the Institute for future studies and technology assessment. She participates at the mentoring-program of Neue deutschen Medienmacher. But in her heart, she is still the little Turkish girl from Wedding.

Sophia Söderquist is a Swedish Berlin-based filmmaker, whose film Nails is screening at the Berlin Feminist Film Week 2018.