Documentary Films, Experimental Films, Feature Films

Do You Think God Loves Immigrant Kids, Mom ?

Drama

90 mins

Turkey

Armenian

Winner

Jury Choice Best Documentary Feature Film (Debut - Social Drama) - Rena Lusin Bitmez
Best Writer - Rena Lusin Bitmez
Best Cinematography - Nurdogan Erduvan
Best Editing - Rena Lusin Bitmez, Uğur Hamidogullari
Best Sound Deign - Erkan Altınok

Trailer

Play Video

Synopsis

This film tells the struggle of Armenian families migrated to Turkey/Istanbul who try to provide education for their children despite all the circumstances. In the core of this struggle, which started in 2003, there stands a dining hall centered school, located in a basement of a church where migrant children receive education from volunteer educators. During the film, the struggle of children living in a foreign land, their daily lives, their former habits and longings are told through the eyes of migrant children.

Stills

Title:

Do You Think God Loves Immigrant Kids, Mom ?

Original Title:

Do You Think God Loves Immigrant Kids, Mom ?

Production Year:

2019

Subtitles:

English

Director:

Rena Lusin Bitmez

Casts:

Ruzanna Babaian

Hasmik Varteresian

Antranik Yedigarian

Harutyun Bogosian

Producer:

Rena Lusin Bitmez, Murat Izzet Arslan (Post Producer)

Writer:

Rena Lusin Bitmez

Editor:

Rena Lusin Bitmez, Ugur Hamidogulları

Dir. of Photography:

Nurdogan Erduvan

Sound Design:

Erkan Altinok

Director's Interview

Festival:

2020

Category:

Documentary Films, Experimental Films, Feature Films

Country:

Turkey

Language:

Armenian

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Rena Lusin Bitmez

Director, scriptwriter, producer and photographer. She was born in Istanbul. She graduated from Yıldız Technical University and also from Marmara University Institute of Fine Arts from the department of Cinema and Television. She also took actor management, dramaturgy and classic drama lessons. Generally, she preferred the film projects in which she wrote the script and she directed.

Director Statement:

Immigration, where various types are being lived nowadays, is not only about living a fugitive’s life, but also being disfranchised, dispossessed and having a life with an uncertain future full of hardships. The immigrants are unwanted guests in the countries they migrated, who lives at the edge struggling for their existence. There is a certain relationship between migration and poverty and deprivation. Women and children are the most affected ones. The human rights of immigrant women and children in this situation are easily ignored because of prejudice. They are forced to remain distant from becoming integrated with the culture of the country they migrated and continuing their culture. Because of the differences they have with the culture and language of the country they live in, they become isolated. While every year on 18th December, the International Migrants Day is celebrated all around the world, the living conditions of the immigrants become worse day by day.

I have encountered one of these situations for the first time ten years ago.

In Kumkapi, Istanbul there is a church between shoemakers’ workshops and printing houses, tanner workshops and garment manufacturers, kiosks and blacksmiths. And below this church, in the basement, there’s a school, which is converted from a cafeteria and impossible to notice from outside. When I heard about this school, the most exciting thing about this school was that it was converted from such a place by immigrants for their children and continued serving unnoticed for 9 years.

After getting necessary permissions, I have lived in that school with children for a year to make observations and to have the children get used to me. I met the parents of the immigrant children and other Armenian families and witnessed their relations with neighborhood, their lives, stuck between the church school and the local bazaar that set on Thursdays, and their special moments.

At the beginning, because of their illegal situation, it took a long time for them to accept me to involve in their community. I observed the efforts of the parents for a year. While most of them are college graduates and know at least three languages, they work as housemaids, clerks and workers in small workshops for a very low fees. Nevertheless they still try hard to have their children get a proper education. One of the details I observed is, while some of the immigrants’ aim is to collect enough money and return to Armenia, most of the immigrants want to get citizenship and have their children get a legitimate education.

This school in the basement of the church represents the illegitimate lives of all immigrants. There is only one difference between me, an Armenian who was born in Turkey, and the illegal immigrants who share the same language: Citizenship, that they crave for and I have… After realizing that I may be the one of the most suitable person who can understand the situation of illegal immigrants and the likes, it was inevitable for me to shoot this documentary.