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"Journey of Hope" tells a story which is repeated tens of thousands of times every year in Europe, as poor workers from the southern countries travel north to what they hope will be better jobs with larger paychecks. The movie, which won this year's Academy Award as best foreign film, tells of a family that leaves its secure life in a hill village of Turkey, and travels by rail, ship, car, truck, and finally foot toward the mirage of a new life in Switzerland.

Because the motion picture camera has a tendency to make everything it photographs look picturesque, life in Turkey seems fairly idyllic for the family. Their small home nestles next to olive trees on a beautiful hillside, and they have a secure place in the daily life of their village. But the greater world beckons. They study a postcard from a relative, which shows snow-capped mountains and promises a paradise in Switzerland. And eventually the father, restless, ambitious, determines that they must sell everything they own to buy passage to the north.

They find people who are eager to help - other Turks who operate this cruel parody of the underground railway. They are told they must leave their children behind - to "follow" as soon as the money starts rolling in - but they take one boy, the brightest. The wife is filled with fears and misgivings. She cannot envision leaving her home and family, but her husband has a fierce light in his eye, a vision that will not be denied, and in their society it is his decision which is final.

We follow the details of the journey, every step of which is designed to part the travelers from their money - not only through tickets and bribes, but also through currency exchange scams and simple con games. Some of the most memorable moments show the travelers waiting through long nights in cold, empty train stations - strangers in a strange land. Eventually the family and others find themselves in Italy, on the slopes of the Alps, being advised to walk across in weather so dangerous the guide refuses to take them - and is punished by the criminals who run the racket.

The conclusion of the movie is easily guessed. The only surprise is that the Swiss are portrayed as being generally humane to their uninvited visitors; other movies about illegal European immigrants, such as Dusan Makevejev's " Montenegro ," about Greeks in Sweden, or Rainer Werner Fassbinder's "Fear Eats the Soul: Ali," about a Moroccan in Germany, show a degree of racism that is not seen in this film.

"Journey of Hope" concerns a persistent pattern of immigration that mirrors, in Europe, the northward drift of American black people in the years after World War I. But it does not give much of the larger view, and never deals with the fact that Germany, Switzerland, the Scandinavian countries and other rich nations actually need these poor, cheap Southerners to do menial jobs that the locals disdain.

The film prefers a tighter focus on this one family, its journey and its fate. And at the end it is difficult to say what lesson has been learned. Their experience itself reminded me of " The Grapes of Wrath ," another story of a family on the road toward an elusive mirage of economic security. There is enormous potential here, but the film does not quite pay off, and the crucial decisions taken at each stage of this story are often so stupid and foolhardy that we despair; this family is taking such chances, we feel, that only the gods can save it. And the gods do not seem to care.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film credits.

Journey Of Hope (1991)

110 minutes

Dietmar Schonherr as Massimo

Yaman Okay as Turkman

Mathias Gnadinger as Truckdriver Ramser

Necmettin Cobanoglu as Haydar

Nur Surer as Meryem

Emin Sivas as Mehmet Ali

• Manfred Eicher

Produced by

• Alfi Sinniger
• Peter Fueter

Photographed by

• Elemer Ragalyi
• Galip Iyitanir

Written and Directed by

• Xavier Koller

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Journey of Hope

Film details, brief synopsis, cast & crew, xavier koller, necmettin cobanoglu, ardinc akbas, technical specs.

The tragic tale of an impoverished Turkish family's journey to Switzerland at the hands of illegal immigrant smugglers.

Yasar Güner

Huseyin mete, yaman tarcan, selahattin firat, meryem caki, abbas manis, yasar kutbay, kutay kokturk, mehmet sugan, ali demirbas, hasan dundar, sevim metin, saadet turkoz, semiha dicleli, erdal merdan, ihsan karasubasi, sebastiano filocamo, francesco migliacco, konstantin schmidt, selahattin kardag, dietmar schonherr, mathias gnadinger, fritz denoth, herbert leiser, andrea zogg, hansjorg schneider, nicolay mylanek, liliana heimberg, jurgen cziesla, joseph scheidegger, albert freuler, turgay aksoy, stefano alleva, arild andersen, deniz bilges, kathrin brunner, maria antonella cannarozzi, edouard cavazzi, feride cicekoglu, grazia colombini, maria grazia colombini, pio corradi, nello correale, manfred eicher, raymond esposito, rudiger findeisen, otto franke, peter fueter, peter-christian fueter, jan garbarek, ibrahim gunduz, gunay guner, sonja gutmann, bernd hellthaler, heike hubert, peter hurlimann, galip iyitanir, robert jansa, pavol jasovsky, helmut klee, luigi pelizzo, enzo porcelli, elemer ragalyi, terje rypdal, mike schleiniger, bernd schmidl, andreas schneider, alfi sinniger, peter spoerri, martin steiner, sabina wolfer, best foreign language film, miscellaneous notes.

Released in United States 1991

Released in United States April 1991

Released in United States August 1990

Released in United States August 1991

Released in United States May 10, 1991

Released in United States May 17, 1991

Released in United States May 1991

Released in United States October 1991

Released in United States on Video January 29, 1992

Released in United States September 1991

Released in United States Spring April 26, 1991

Shown at American Film Market (AFM) in Santa Monica February 28 - March 8, 1991.

Shown at Banco Nacional International Film Festival in Rio de Janeiro September 5-15, 1991.

Shown at Filmfest DC in Washington, DC, May 1-12, 1991.

Shown at La Baule European Film Festival October 4-11, 1991.

Shown at Locarno Film Festival August 2-12, 1990.

Shown at Montreal World Film Festival (out of competition) August 22 - September 2, 1991.

Shown at Norwegian Film Festival in Haugesund August 18-24, 1991.

Shown at San Francisco International Film Festival April 25 - May 9, 1991.

Shown at WorldFest Houston International Film Festival April 19-28, 1991.

Began shooting November 1989.

Completed shooting February 1990.

Released in United States 1991 (Shown at American Film Market (AFM) in Santa Monica February 28 - March 8, 1991.)

Released in United States 1991 (Shown at Montreal World Film Festival (out of competition) August 22 - September 2, 1991.)

Released in United States 1991 (Shown at San Francisco International Film Festival April 25 - May 9, 1991.)

Released in United States April 1991 (Shown at AFI Los Angeles International Film Festival April 11-25, 1991.)

Released in United States April 1991 (Shown at WorldFest Houston International Film Festival April 19-28, 1991.)

Released in United States May 10, 1991 (Chicago)

Released in United States August 1990 (Shown at Locarno Film Festival August 2-12, 1990.)

Released in United States August 1991 (Shown at Norwegian Film Festival in Haugesund August 18-24, 1991.)

Released in United States September 1991 (Shown at Banco Nacional International Film Festival in Rio de Janeiro September 5-15, 1991.)

Released in United States October 1991 (Shown at La Baule European Film Festival October 4-11, 1991.)

Released in United States May 1991 (Shown at Filmfest DC in Washington, DC, May 1-12, 1991.)

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Xavier Koller

Necmettin Çobanoglu

Haydar Sener

Erdinc Akbas

Mathias Gnädinger

Truckdriver Ramser

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JOURNEY OF HOPE

Reise der hoffnung.

The story of a Turkish Alevi family trying to illegally emigrate to Switzerland, a country they know only from a postcard.

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Watch Journey of Hope

• 1 hr 50 min
• 7.5   (2,234)

Can hope be found on a postcard? That is what a Kurdish family living on a farm in Turkey dreams about after looking at a postcard: desire for a better quality of life in Switzerland. They will sell all their possessions, including the farm, to search for the land of milk and honey. The adventures they experience along the way will make the journey of hope seem like a pipe dream.

This is a timely movie because it illustrates a real-life scenario: the plight of the Kurds in the Middle East, which started in the late 80s as they emigrate to other countries, escaping political turmoil and bad economic conditions. That same scenario is still taking place today, just as it did more than 20 years ago, with the instability in the Middle East. That fact makes the movie timely.

Husband and wife Haydar and Meryam take their youngest child, Mustafa, along for the trip. They are smuggled inside the cargo hold of a ship sailing for Italy. Once there, a kindly truck driver shows compassion and takes them to the Swiss border. But border guards will not allow the family to cross, sending them to Milan, where they meet a group of unscrupulous human smugglers who only care about money, not the value of human life. The smugglers take them to a dangerous mountain pass in the Alps, where the weather is rough, and they lose all their possessions.

Some of the people with the family, including Meryam, manage to make it safely to a small Swiss region. Haydar is reunited with Meryam some time later, but their son Mustafa, unfortunately, has frozen to death due to the hardships of the trip. So any gains achieved are overshadowed by all they lost. Was it worth it?

• Genres Drama
• Cast Necmettin Çobanoglu Nur Sürer Emin Sivas
• Director Xavier Koller
• Release Date 1990
• MPAA Rating PG
• Runtime 1 hr 50 min
• Language English
• IMDB Rating 7.5   (2,234)

MPAA Rating

Produced by, journey of hope (1990), directed by xavier koller.

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Journey of hope.

1990 ‘Reise der Hoffnung’ Directed by Xavier Koller

In a village in eastern Turkey, tales of the economic success of Turks in Switzerland inspire Haydar to convince his wife Meryem that they must go. He sells their livestock and small plot of land in exchange for passage for two. He wants to leave their seven children in the care of the eldest and his parents; his father advises him to take one son to be educated in Europe, as economic insurance. The three set off for Istanbul, Milan, and Switzerland, stowing away on a ship. At Lake Como, they pay the rest of their money to unprincipled men who abandon them at an Alpine pass before a blizzard. Father and son are separated from Meryem. Will anyone reach the land of promise?

Nur Sürer Necmettin Çobanoğlu Emin Sivas Yaman Okay Sebastiano Filocamo Dietmar Schönherr Mathias Gnädinger Andrea Zogg Hansjörg Schneider Erdinç Akbaş Yaşar Güner Sevim Metin

Director Director

Xavier Koller

Producers Producers

Alfi Sinniger Peter-Christian Fueter

Writers Writers

Xavier Koller Feride Çiçekoğlu

Editors Editors

Daniel Gibel Galip Iyitanir

Cinematography Cinematography

Elemér Ragályi

Art Direction Art Direction

Kathrin Brunner

Sound Sound

Andreas Schneider

Costume Design Costume Design

Grazia Colombini

Channel Four Films Eurimages Condor Films Antea Cinematografica Schweizer Fernsehen (FS) Catpics Cinerent Filmequipment Service AG Cineverde Dewe Hellthaler Département Fédéral de l'Intérieur TSR SRF

France Switzerland Turkey UK

Primary Language

Spoken languages.

German Turkish

Releases by Date

01 aug 1990, 28 sep 1990, 04 apr 1991, 13 apr 1991, 01 jul 1991, 13 nov 1991, 09 feb 1992, 06 mar 1992, releases by country, switzerland.

• Premiere Locarno Film Festival

110 mins   More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by Marwan Bobssi ★★★★½

I cannot think of any other movie that portray "Illegal Immigration" better than "Journey Of Hope", extremely powerful and Realistic, Moving, Sad, and Unforgettable....What an Underrated Gem. i Highly recommend it.

Review by Hicham Lamalem ★★★★½

" لم تكن مدينتي سوى مقربة لآمالي. " - فروغ فراخزاده

منذ مدة طويلة لم أشاهد فيلما مؤثرا يُبكي العيون كهذا العمل التركي السويسري المشترك والذي حاز بجدارة واستحقاق على جائزة أفضل فيلم أجنبي في حفل الأوسكار قبل ثلاثة عقود.

فلاح تركي من ريف مرعش يقرر الهجرة بطريقة غير شرعية رفقة زوجته وإبنه الصغير من تركيا إلى سويسرا مرورا بإيطاليا ويمر بالعديد من المطبات، رحلة مليئة بالمعاناة وجشع السماسرة وقسوة الطقس والتضاريس.. في جوابه على سؤال ضابط الشرطة قال الريفي المسكين إن ما قاده لهاته الرحلة الانتحارية هو الأمل.. فقط الأمل لحياة أفضل.

الجنة في السماء وليست في هذا الكوكب يا حيدر.

Review by StevesFilms ★★★★★

Steve's Film Studies ~ SWISS ~ Drama ‘Reise der Hoffnung’ Directed by Xavier Koller WHY SEE THIS FILM ? 1. RT : 83/84% www.rottentomatoes.com/m/journey_of_hope_1991 2. IMDB : 7,5/10 One Oscar and some regional awards. 3. "”For me, the hope is that this would change. It’s not enough to open your purse and pay guilt off with money, you have to open your heart.”" ew.com/article/1991/05/17/journey-hope-0/

MORE SWISS FILMS HERE: boxd.it/7H4CI

Review by 𝐵𝑒𝑠ℎ𝑖𝑟 ♤ ★★★★

الأمل وهم قد يقتلك.

Review by MLPHET's ★★★★½

خلال الفيلم تجرأ عقلي على قول "كل هذا بسبب جشعك وطمعك يا حيدر"، لكن أدركت بعدها مدى جرمي. ف كيف أحمل هذا المسكين هذا الذنب وكل سبل حياته تقوده لذلك؟. تحت وطأة حكومة سيئة تجعل الألاف من البشر يهاجرون و يهربون سعيا إلى لقمة عيش كريمة لا غير!. هذه السراب المسمى بالجنة تلاشى عنده نزوله إلى أرض الواقع وأن الأمل الحقيقي ليس إلا تمسكك بحياتك البسيطة والحفاظ عليها لا غير.

عمل غير مناسب لي البتة لأنه أدخلني في دوامة من الحزن أحتاج لأيام لكي أخرج منها.

Review by SirFolmarv ★★★

March Around the World 2018 23/30 Switzerland/ Turkey(?)

More aptly titled "Journey of Poor Decisions," Journey of Hope is a mostly failed attempt at a tear-jerker to make you really sympathize with these immigrants. Now don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't feel for many refugees around the world going through such trials, it's just that the film doesn't make me feel this way. The protagonists don't flee from political persecution or war, they literally see a picture of Switzerland on a postcard and decide they should leave their modest, but still perfectly sustainable lives, in order to leave for the land of "chocolate factories" and "where butter will flow from the udder of a goat."

Review by Dereck ★★★★

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

Extremely harrowing and depressing film about immigration. He was right in not wanting to take any of the children. I knew the son would die from the very beginning.

Review by hossam3li ★★★★★

- وانت جاي في ايه يا حيدر ؟ - الأمل، دا احنا بنأكل في الزريبة

Review by Ahmed Elamrosy ★★★★½

Journey of suffering

Review by Henrique Peres ★★★★

O Oscar de melhor filme internacional de 1991 já retratando a crise dos refugiados, que viria a ser uma das mazelas do século seguinte, de partir o coração.

Review by Ahmed Ragab ★★★★★

حيدر ..ما الذي جعلك تأتي إلى هنا؟ - الأمل

Review by Anass Touti ★★★★½

تحفة فنية عن رجل تخلى عن البادية و رحل يبحث عن الأمل في المدينة يا لها من رحلة مليئة بالمعانات و الألم

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Reise der Hoffnung (1990) AKA Journey of Hope

In a village in eastern Turkey, tales of the economic success of Turks in Switzerland inspire Haydar to convince his wife Meryem that they must go. He sells their livestock and small plot of land in exchange for passage for two. He wants to leave their seven children in the care of the eldest and his parents; his father advises him to take one son to be educated in Europe, as economic insurance. The three set off for Istanbul, Milan, and Switzerland, stowing away on a ship. At Lake Como, they pay the rest of their money to unprincipled men who abandon them at an Alpine pass before a blizzard. Father and son are separated from Meryem. Will anyone reach the land of promise?

Director: Xavier Koller.  AKA Journey of Hope Stars: Necmettin Çobanoglu, Nur Sürer, Emin Sivas, Yaman Okay, Erdinc Akbas, Mathias Gnädinger, Dietmar Schönherr, Andrea Zogg, Erdal Merdan.

1990 Locarno International Film Festival – Nominated for the Golden Leopard. 1991 Academy Awards – Winner of an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

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Categories Drama

Tags 1990s AA SWITZERLAND TURKEY

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'Journey of Hope': From Despair

By Richard Bernstein

• April 21, 1991

Since the Academy Awards ceremony last month, the French have been grumbling over the fact that "Cyrano de Bergerac" failed to win the prize for best foreign-language film, a verdict they interpret as a sign of American hostility to French movies.

Instead, as Daniel Toscan du Plantier, the head of Unifrance, the main promoter of French films, wrote in The New York Times, the award went to an "obscure low-budget movie from a country virtually without cinema," and thus certainly not as grand an effort as "Cyrano."

The objecting French admit to not having seen "Journey of Hope," the "obscure" Oscar winner from Switzerland, but Americans will soon have that opportunity. The film opens on Friday at the 57th Street Playhouse in Manhattan. Audiences may be surprised to find that the "Journey of Hope," conceived and directed by Xavier Koller, has many of the qualities the French ordinarily admire. It is serious, intense, politically meaningful and closely based on a real-life incident; plus, it was less a commercially promising business proposition than a labor of love by Mr. Koller.

"The motivation to do the film came out of consciousness of the daily political issues of life," said Mr. Koller, who used his salary to help finance the $2.3 million production. "In Europe," he continued, agreeing with Mr. Toscan du Plantier on one detail, "there is no real film industry anymore, except perhaps in France. There are only small, independent film producers who hardly ever do commercial films. We get government subsidies, and that creates a certain responsibility to participate as artists in issues that are important at the moment."

"Journey of Hope" tells a simple story. It is the tale, as Mr. Toscan du Plantier put it, of a "brave and nice family of Turks" who try, with poignant results, to emigrate illegally to Switzerland. The film does nothing more complicated than follow the family on their journey, which originates in their village in eastern Anatolia and ends in the mountains dividing Italy and Switzerland. The story is based on the experiences of a real Turkish family that tried to cross the same mountains on foot in October 1988.

Mr. Koller said he was on his way to Paris to work on a screenplay when he noticed an item on the family in the Swiss newspapers.

"There were just the basic facts in the newspaper about a family trying to cross the mountain," he said. That effort alone would not have attracted particular attention, but part of the family's experience -- which, to disclose here, would give away a key element of the film -- made a stir in Switzerland.

"Everybody felt guilty," he said. "This kind of catastrophe was supposed to happen far away, but not in Switzerland. I myself was emotionally very caught up in what it meant for a family to try to cross the mountain at that time of year and to experience what this family experienced."

For Mr. Koller, who is 46 years old, the newspaper account would lead to a career breakthrough. Born in Schwyz in central Switzerland, he was trained as a youth as a precision tool maker, then spent three years at the Zurich Drama School before turning to film making. His first major film, "Hannibal," made in 1972, lost so much money, he said, that he spent the next seven years paying off debts. This year's Academy Award has led to the distribution of his new movie in some 20 countries, including Turkey, clearly a reward for the two years of work that followed his discovery of the newspaper item.

"I arrived in Paris and I couldn't work for days on the other script because this Turkish family was always troubling me," Mr. Koller said. "One day I woke up very early with the family still troubling me, and I started writing a story, imagining how the whole thing could have started. And I kept on writing until I imagined how it could have finished."

When he read further accounts of the incident, Mr. Koller was intrigued to find that his story was very close to what actually happened. He decided to make the film.

In Turkey he met Feride Cicekoglu, a journalist and screenwriter, who collaborated on the screenplay, which is mostly in Turkish. Mr. Koller was able to raise about $1.5 million for the film, and in April 1989 he went to the village of the Turkish family that had tried to emigrate to Switzerland (their home is used in the film). Though still too grief-stricken by their ordeal to be interviewed, they gave permission, as Mr. Koller put it, "to use their story, to give their pain a voice."

"I understood," he added, "how difficult it is to leave your country, your roots, and to go to a modern industrial country. And yet these people need to do it because they want to participate in modern life."

Haydar, the family patriarch, is played by Necmettin Cobanoglu, whose only major film had been "Yol," directed by Serif Goren. Nur Surer, a star of Turkish cinema, plays Meryem, Haydar's wife.

"The fact is the family," Mr. Koller said. "The number of children, that they left, where they came from -- these are facts. Much of the rest, until they come to Italy, to Milan, is researched from different stories. I researched dozens of cases to create a story line for the film."

Several scenes, including one in which the family stows away on an Italian freighter to reach Naples, did not actually happen. Nor did a trip with a Swiss truck driver, at first suspicious and later kindly. But, Mr. Koller said, the family's involvement with a group of Turkish hustlers and the mountain crossing are both true to life. The film was shot, he said, at the very place in the mountains, the Splugen Pass, and at the Swiss border post where the real incidents occurred.

A postscript: One of the Turkish hustlers who victimized the family was prosecuted in Italy for being a member of an illegal organization, Mr. Koller said. But the case was dropped, apparently on technical grounds. Now, he said, the man is being sought by Interpol. He is wanted in Switzerland in connection with his involvement in the events that prompted Mr. Koller to make "Journey of Hope."

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Journey of Hope (1990)

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Journey of Hope

Original title: reise der hoffnung.

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In a village in eastern Turkey, tales of the economic success of Turks in Switzerland inspire Haydar to convince his wife Meryem that they must go. He sells their livestock and small plot of land in exchange for passage for two. He wants to leave their seven children in the care of the eldest and his parents; his father advises him to take one son to be educated in Europe, as economic insurance. The three set off for Istanbul, Milan, and Switzerland, stowing away on a ship. At Lake Como, they pay the rest of their money to unprincipled men who abandon them at an Alpine pass before a blizzard. Father and son are separated from Meryem. Will anyone reach the land of promise?

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Full Movie: Journey of Hope – Retracing the Kindertransport after 85 Years

At 100 years of age, Walter Bingham, a resident of Jerusalem, is an enduring symbol of resilience. He said: “The past is gone. We mustn’t dwell on it. But if you don’t know the past you can’t make the future any better. We can educate, speak to people, to schools. Talking to people about what it means and the consequences of their actions and hope that they will learn from it.”

Lily Ebert, a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, is also 100 years old. She said: “Walter and I are both centenarian Holocaust survivors. We are members of a community that we did not want to be a part of or choose to be a part of – the Holocaust survivor community. We have to live, every day, with the pain of what we went through. We share that understanding, and it is for that reason that meeting the inspirational Walter was so special.”

Walter Bingham met Auschwitz survivor Lily Ebert at her London home last week. Bingham was visiting from Israel to speak at the March of the Living UK film premiere of “ Journey of Hope: Retracing the Kindertransport after 85 years. ” It tells the remarkable story of three Kindertransport survivors, Walter, 100, Paul Alexander, 88, and George Shefi, 92. Last November they marked 85 years since fleeing Germany without their parents after Kristallnacht.

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Reise der Hoffnung

In a village in eastern Turkey, tales of the economic success of Turks in Switzerland inspire Haydar to convince his wife Meryem that they must go.

Journey of Hope (1990) - Full Cast & Crew

Actors and roles, crew of Journey of Hope (1990). Who was filming and what role he played.