Die Fremde

A Turkish German woman wages a near-hopeless battle to assert her independence from the oppressive values of her family and their Old World culture in When We Leave, a doleful melodrama. There are some intense, moving sequences, but too much emotional badgering and a general shortage of finesse. The beleaguered central character, Umay (Sibel Kekilli), a German-born woman of Turkish background, suffers physical abuse from her husband in Istanbul. Pushed beyond her limit, she flees with their young son (Nizam Schiller) to her family in Berlin, where she hits a wall of cultural attitude. By leaving her husband and, worse yet, taking the boy, she has brought shame on the family. (San Francisco Chronicle)

Director Feo Aladag made the movie in the wake of a series of honor killings in Germany's Turkish community.