Biyografi Dünyası
Karışık Kebap

Mixed Kebab

Movie · 2012 · 7 people

Guy Lee Thys directed the 2012 Belgian-Turkish drama Karışık Kebap (Mixed Kebab). Bringing together love, family pressure and identity, it counts as both a romantic drama and an LGBTQ-themed film. Several languages are spoken, chiefly Dutch and Turkish. Sources put its running time anywhere from 95 to 98 minutes.

Ibrahim, a young Turkish man raised in Belgium, lives a Western lifestyle and asks people to call him Bram. He is in love with Kevin, while his family expects him to marry Marina, the girl they consider suitable. Rather than accept the marriage, he comes out as gay and meets violent reactions from his father and his brother Furkan. Cem Akkanat plays Ibrahim/Bram, Simon Van Buyten is Kevin, Gamze Tazim is Elif and Karlijn Sileghem is Marina, with Lucas De Wolf as Furkan. Ergun Şimşek, Hakan Gürkan, Rudolph Segers, Gökhan Girginol, Sinan Cihangir, Recep Yağızoğlu, Mathias Vergels and Magali Uytterhaegen complete the cast.

Thys, who also wrote the script, produced with Gijs Van De Westelaken, and the Flanders Audiovisual Fund backed the production. Björn Charpentier was cinematographer, Marc Wouters editor and Michelino Bisceglia composer.

DirectorGuy Lee Thys
Production companyFlanders Audiovisual Fund

Reactions

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Cast

Gamze Tazim Gamze Tazim Actor · 37 years old Mathias Vergels Cem Akkanat Simon Van Buyten Gökhan Girginol Karlijn Sileghem Magali Uytterhaegen

Through different eyes

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

The film pushes the experience of young people of immigrant background raised in Belgium, caught between two worlds, to its sharpest point through sexual identity. Ibrahim asking people to call him Bram is a small but telling detail: a name sums up the distance between a family's expectations and how a person sees himself. The clash between pressure to marry the girl the family deems suitable and a Western way of life is a tension many immigrant families know. Dialogue moving between Dutch and Turkish carries that duality naturally. My reservation: building the father's and brother's response around violence risks reinforcing stereotypes about immigrant families that are already widespread.

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

Guy Lee Thys, who also wrote the script, builds the triangle of love, family pressure and identity along a plain, honest line. Dialogue that weaves several languages together signals which world a character is speaking from without any need to spell it out, and that is the script's smartest choice. On the other hand, the story passes through the genre's familiar stops, such as the coming-out moment and the family backlash that follows. In trying to balance romantic drama with a social message, the message in my view sometimes wins out and the relationship itself slips into the background. Formally it takes no risks, but it is a carefully built film that takes its subject seriously.

Family Viewer Asks whether the whole household can watch it; cares about humour and heart.

This is the story of a young man who comes out to his family and the reaction, going as far as violence, that he meets. Because it includes violence within the family and heavy emotional moments, it is not suitable for young children. For adults and older teenagers, it gives plenty to think about on acceptance, understanding and pressure at home. If you plan to watch it as a family, the adults should choose it knowing the subject in advance.

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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