Kleine Freiheit is a 2003 film about the friendship (and later relationship) between two teenage boys who are illegal immigrants in Germany. The movie was critically well-received, particularly because of its accurate depiction of the Turkish–Kurdish conflict and the acting prowess of the nonprofessional actors. Cagdas Bozkurt won an acting prize at the Ankara film festival, while the movie won a viewers’ choice award in Istanbul. Kleine Freiheit, the German title of the movie, is a wordplay on Große Freiheit (Great Freedom), the rather famous name of a street in the red light St. Pauli district, in Hamburg, where the plot is set.

When the pilot Marion meets the Kurdish male prostitute Baran in Turkey, a chemistry develops between the two. Because Baran wants to escape his miserable circumstances, he persuades Marion to take him to Germany with him. Marion, who is in the midst of a life and meaning crisis and has to digest a cancer diagnosis, makes a future in Europe possible for him through a sham marriage. However, the “deal” that the two make does not last long.