To Berlin, and an intense drama with Hijamat, the tale of a Muslim family’s angst at dealing with one of the men´s romantic relationships with another man. When photographs of Kerem (Jael Cam Ilhan) and his boyfriend Samuel (Jeremy Hanhoff) are brought to the attention of his deeply religious family and Muslim community, his elder brother Murad (Kida Khodr Ramadan) has to act fast in order to both support his brother and also appease his father, the local imam, and various other hot-headed associates of theirs.

Told through the eyes of Murad, Hijamat begins as we join Murad´s family at the lavish circumcision party of their young son. Kerem is physically attacked at the party for his queerness by a few men from the community. Luckily, Murad manages to save him, but everyone now knows Kerem is gay.

Both Murad and Kerem work for their father Ibrahim’s (Vedat Erincin) successful restaurant. Their mother, Leyla (Nicolette Krebitz), is a food influencer who promotes the cuisine of her Kosovan heritage. Ibrahim is appalled at the news of his son’s homosexuality and instructs the local imam Ahmet (Aziz Capkurt) to rid Kerem of his queerness. Leyla is more understanding, having lived as a minority herself, a Muslim woman in Kosovo, and experienced rejection and hardship during the late 1990s ethnic cleansing. Both Ibrahim and Ahmet are old-fashioned and set in their ways. However, neither is an angel, for reasons that emerge later. Murad struggles to deal with them. He also struggles to reassure Kerem, who feels he has no future in his community. How will this pan out for the family?

Iranian writer and director Nader Saeivar has shone a spotlight on a dark area of queer life – gay Muslim men and their families. The word Hijamat refers to the ancient remedy of cupping, in this instance, wet cupping, where suction cups are placed over incisions made on your back, with the aim of drawing out stagnant blood or fluid to improve energy and well-being. It´s very relevant here as so many of Murad´s family and associates are living in the past in terms of their views of homosexuality, and there is a lot of stagnant blood to remove.

Hijamat is an often dark drama that plays out at a suitably painful pace. The film slowly reveals many reasons for the characters’ behavior. The legendary Nastassja Kinski complements the strong cast as Margot, a close friend of Murad´s. She is deemed to have lost her mind as she often has hallucinations and relives her past when she managed to escape over the Berlin Wall but had to leave the love of her life behind. Why are her delusions deemed madness, but those ancient delusions of the religious community, still believed today, deemed sanity?

Ramadan is excellent as Murad, desperately trying to hold everyone together, whilst battling his own demons. The same holds true for Krebitz as Leyla. Capkurt plays the arrogant and out-of-touch imam to a touch. Ilhan´s role as the distraught Kerem is relatively low-profile. However, it´s refreshingly different to see this kind of family drama give the main role to someone other than the gay person. The strong script gives equal weight to the plot and the characters. The underbelly of religious doctrine is laid bare and questioned. The subject matter is quite serious, sometimes hopeless, but overall the film is entertaining and successfully combines issues of family, reputation, migration, faith, and identity.