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Lola + Bilidikid

Lola und Bilidikid

Movie · 1999 · 10 people

Turkish-German drama Lola + Bilidikid (German: Lola und Bilidikid) was made in 1999, with Kutluğ Ataman as both writer and director. A queer story set in the subcultural underground of 1990s Berlin, it examines, with a realist eye, the pressure and discrimination faced by LGBT people in the Turkish community. It was first shown in Germany, did not find a wide audience and remained a cult film. Zeynep Özbatur was the Turkish producer, joined by Martin Hagemann and Martin Wiebel. The name Bilidikid is a Turkish rendering of Billy the Kid.

The story follows Murat, who has lived in Berlin since birth. He is called "Almancı" in Istanbul and a "migrant Turk" in Berlin: neither fully German nor fully Turkish. His older brother Osman heads the family. One day Murat learns of another brother, thrown out of the house years earlier, and sets out to search for him in the streets of Berlin. The man he finds is not the person described to him: he is Lola, a flamboyant stage performer dressed as a woman, with her lover Bilidikid at her side. Family pressure, violence and the search for identity drive the drama.

Baki Davrak plays Murat, Gandi Mukli Lola, Erdal Yıldız Bilidikid and Hasan Ali Mete Osman, with Inge Keller as Ute. Arpad Bondy composed the music.

DirectorKutluğ Ataman
Production companyCeo Produksiyon

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Baki Davrak Baki Davrak Actor · 55 years old Hasan Ali Mete Hasan Ali Mete Actor · 60 years old Inge Keller Gandi Mukli Erdal Yıldız Michael Gerber Hakan Tandoğan Cihangir Gümüştürkmen Celal Perk Willi Herren

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Through different eyes

History & Society Lens Asks about the period, the social background and what the work reflects.

Lola + Bilidikid holds a bold place among films about the Turkish community in Germany. Murat being an "Almancı" in Istanbul and a "migrant Turk" in Berlin sums up, in a single line, a generation suspended between two countries. The film interweaves that question of belonging with sexual identity: the authority embodied by the elder brother who heads the family meets those carving out a place in Berlin's subculture. Its realistic look at the pressure and discrimination LGBT people face within the Turkish community makes a rarely discussed subject visible. Viewers should also know that violence is an important part of the story.

Cinephile Looks at script, editing and directing choices; keeps a distance from formula films.

Written and directed by Kutluğ Ataman, the film brings an identity drama together with an underground world in a realist idiom. Its structure rests on a search: Murat looking for his lost brother turns the film into a journey through the streets of Berlin, and the discovery that the person he finds is nothing like the one described forms the central dramatic break. The name Bilidikid, a Turkish rendering of Billy the Kid, is to my mind a small but clever play on the macho cowboy image. Its weakness lies in the moments where family pressure and violence push it towards melodrama; that escalation does not always sit easily with the realist tone. Failing to reach a wide audience does not mean it has not earned its cult status.

Yeşilçam Nostalgic A viewer raised on the classics, looking for warm storytelling and strong acting.

For an eye used to Yeşilçam's stories of life abroad, Germany was usually a place of longing and broken families. Lola + Bilidikid takes the same family theme in a completely different direction: the search for a brother thrown out of the house looks like a classic melodrama core, yet the film deliberately refuses that warm, forgiving tone. For viewers raised on the moral world of the classics it is harsh and unfamiliar; its violence and underground setting will not put everyone at ease. But in telling the story of a child cast out by the family so openly, it speaks about the very thing the old films always kept silent on.

These are not reader reviews: they are short editorial takes written from different viewer perspectives with AI assistance. Reader reviews are below.

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