Trailer
Year
2010
Length
30 min
Director
Biljana Garvanlieva
Tobacco Girl
By learning about Mümine's path, Tobacco Girl provides a touching glimpse of the culture of the Yörüks, a minority almost forgotten and certainly unknown, who up to this date inhabit the mountain regions of Macedonia.
Mümine is 14 years of age and lives with her family in the tobacco farming regions in the mountains of Macedonia. It is the only source of income in this region, nothing but tobacco will grow here and people say, it is the best tobacco in the world. Natives to the region also call it the „black gold.“
Mümine is supposed to marry and be sold to her future husband. One kilogram of tobacco costs 3 Euro – a girl is worth about 3000 Euro. That’s the tradition amongst the Yörüken people. But Mümine refuses to accept. She would rather escape, if that meant she could marry the one she loved. In that case, her mother warns, she would become an outcast.
The Yörüks are Turkish people, they came to southern Europe along with the Ottomans 600 years ago and still inhabit the mountain regions of Macedonia. Yörük means: „He, who came by foot.“ They have conserved their century-old traditions and language and rarely mingle with others. They live in their own, anarchical world.
Written and directed by
Biljana Garvanlieva
Director of Photography
Susanne Schüle
Editing
André Nier
Music
Ljubojna
Production Manager
Ognen Antov
Creative Producer
Maria Wischnewski
Producer
Christian Beetz
Commissioning Editor
Brigitta Lange
Sales & distribution
- Press kit
- Press photos
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„Just in diesem Moment überraschen uns die aus dem Theaterbereich stammenden jungen Regisseure Hans Block und Moritz Riesewieck mit einem erstaunlichen Dokumentarfilm, der seit Monaten Publikum und Kritik auf den wichtigsten Festivals der Welt elektrisiert. Völlig zu Recht: Es ist, als würden einem die Scheuklappen weggerissen, als sähe man das, was sich seit Jahren direkt vor unseren Augen abspielt, zum ersten Mal unverschleiert... eine fesselnde ,Doku noir' mit höchstem Anspruch...Dieser Film müsste an allen Schulen gezeigt werden.“
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
17.05.2018
