Hollywoodtürke (2019)

The film is about Alper, a Turk who pretends to be Italian to win the heart of a German girl who doesn’t like Turks. Alper wants to become an actor, but has little success and is always only offered roles as a döner seller or gangster. But he doesn’t even get those parts. One evening, he happens to cross paths with the pretty Sophie. For her application to art academy, Sophie has to make a video portrait of an Italian. Alper happens to find out about this, and since he needs a showreel anyway and really likes Sophie, he pretends to be an Italian named Alberto and wins the part with a few tricks and the help of his friends. He and Sophie grow closer, and through a contact of her mother’s, he wins an audition for a feature film. While Alper thinks the film will be his big break as an actor and a hero, it turns out they are looking for a non-Turkish actor to play a Turkish, Islamist, homosexual terrorist. He continues pretending to be Italian, and the director praises him, saying he has never seen a better Turk played by a non-Turk, and gives Alper the role. On the one hand, Alper is delighted to have his first major film role, but he is conflicted by the film’s message that every Turk or Muslim is a potential terrorist. Although Alper, posing as an Italian, feels increasingly close to achieving his goals, he also runs into more and more problems. When his father spots him in a scene, Alper has to deny knowing him so his disguise won’t be exposed to Sophie. Another time, he must not let on that he understands Turkish, while a Turkish shopkeeper insults him in Turkish right in front of him. Sophie keeps rejecting Alper’s confident, macho advances, and they have an argument. Sophie then abandons the video portrait and forgets her notebook. When Alper goes to return it to her that evening, they are attacked by a few guys. Alper defends Sophie, but both of them get hurt. As Sophie tends to Alper in her apartment, she reveals, while tipsy, why she doesn’t like Turks. Alper asks Sophie whether they might still finish the video after all. In a recorded theatrical monologue, Alper talks about his feelings, and Sophie is surprised by how much depth she discovers beneath his macho façade. On the first day of filming, Alper decides to come clean: he is not Alberto, the Italian, but a Turk, and he cannot play the role because it portrays Turks in general in a bad light. Sophie, who has made it to the final round because of the video portrait, wants to thank Alper and goes to the set without telling him. There, she witnesses Alper reveal that he is Turkish, and is disappointed in him. Because of the emotional turmoil, Sophie fails her final exam and decides to leave Berlin and work at her father’s company from then on. Alper persuades her not to give up on her dream, and they reconcile.