Geboren in Absurdistan (1999)

Stefan Strohmayer holds a senior position in the Interior Ministry and becomes the father of a son. Although he paid for his wife to have a double room to herself, Sister Siglinde, a nun, has Mrs. Dönmez placed in the room too because of a lack of space. When Mrs. Dönmez is visited by her large Turkish family, Mr. Strohmayer gets upset and Sister Siglinde calls him a racist. In the commotion, he picks up the wrong baby boy, and the doctor who rushes over personally puts a name bracelet on that child. Sister Siglinde says nothing about the mix-up and stops the other nuns from saying anything either. In the days after the birth, the Turkish couple have great difficulty dealing with the authorities and the paperwork because their Turkish marriage certificate is not valid in Austria. To make matters worse, they moved into a new apartment immediately after the birth and missed the official registration deadline by two days. They are therefore to be deported from Austria, even though they have lived there for ten years and Mr. Dönmez has a job. When Mr. Dönmez tries to appeal, he ends up in front of Mr. Strohmayer. Unlike his supervisor, Mr. Fuhrmann, Strohmayer is not prejudiced against foreigners in principle, and assures Mr. Dönmez that everything will be all right—but forgets to tell him that he has to submit a written appeal against the decision. Five months later, a nurse who was involved in the mix-up visits the Strohmayer family to confess: Sister Siglinde had said that she switched the two children back, but recently she had given the nurse reason to doubt it. The Strohmayers immediately drive to the Dönmez family’s home, only to learn from the caretaker that they have been deported. On impulse, Stefan Strohmayer sets off for Turkey with his wife and the baby, without first taking a blood test, in the Mercedes belonging to his wealthy father-in-law, Ministerialrat Hoffmann, to look for their real son. In a remote Turkish village, the Strohmayers finally find the Dönmez family, who are having difficulty adjusting to their old homeland. There are several misunderstandings—for example, people think Mrs. Dönmez had an affair with Mr. Strohmayer—but the two families also grow closer, especially the two young mothers. Eventually, Emre Dönmez agrees to a blood test. At Mr. Strohmayer’s request, it is to be carried out in Austria. Mr. Strohmayer arranges to smuggle the family into Austria: a truck driver takes Mr. Dönmez along after Mr. Strohmayer bribes him by paying for a prostitute; Mrs. Dönmez lies in the Mercedes’s trunk with the baby. At first, everything goes well, particularly as Mr. Strohmayer is recognized as an important Interior Ministry official. But then their plan is exposed when the baby starts crying in the trunk. Ministerialrat Hoffmann now helps by getting the story into the newspaper, securing the two families a tearjerking appearance on the TV show “Laura.” The Interior Minister promptly calls in during the broadcast and promises a lenient solution—his adviser also thinks it will go down well with the public, especially with the elections only a few weeks away. At the end, the nun explains to her younger colleague that, of course, she switched the babies back, but deliberately caused all the confusion that followed. The two fathers take their sons to a testing laboratory, but decide not to go through with the test because they love both children equally.