Semra Ertan
Cana Bilir-Meier
Semra Ertan left Turkey to join her parents in West Germany in 1972. She worked as a draughtswoman and interpreter, but also wrote over 350 poems. Ten years later, she committed suicide by self-immolation in Hamburg. This was a protest against the increasing xenophobia she experienced in Germany. She left behind some moving poetry. Cana Bilir-Meier uses Semra Ertan’s poems and fragments of old television reports to assemble a filmic tribute to her aunt.
Betty Schiel
Guest: Cana Bilir-Meier (video artist& curator)
Cana Bilir-Meier
Cana Bilir-Meier studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, the School for Independent Film Friedl Kubelka in Vienna and Sabancı University in Istanbul. In 2021, she was a visiting professor of art education at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. She works as a film-maker, artist and art educator. She co-founded an initiative in memory of Semra Ertan in 2018. In 2020, she co-edited a volume of poems titled Semra Ertan – My name is Ausländer / Benim Adım Yabancı.
Films by Cana Bilir-Meier
Zwischenwelt 2023 | All Ausländer Go to Heaven (Musikvideo Fehler Kuti a.k.a. Julian Warner) 2021 | This Makes Me Want to Predict the Past 2019 | Ronya Othmann 2019 | Kabadayı (Musikvideo EsRap) 2019 | Bestes Gericht 2017
