What do Black people in Europe have in common? With a dead body on the ground, the fictionalized voice-over begins: Aynur (Almila Bagriacik) narrates from beyond the grave as actors portray real events, from Aynur’s marriage to a cousin in Istanbul to her choice to leave the family home dominated by her brothers in favor of the life, clothes and partners of her choosing. The British author and photographer Johny Pitts embarks on a journey from Sheffield to Paris, Brussels, and Berlin, searching for common ground and finding differentiation. A regular woman portrays the fate of Hatun Ayhrun Sürücü, a German woman of Turkish descent, and her struggle for a free, self-determined life in the face of her family's opposition. The film shows how all family members, including the sisters, heartlessly treat Aynur, who does not want to break with her family. Sherry Hormann’s new film dramatizes a 2005 “honor killing” in Berlin, using a fictionalized version of the woman who died as narrator. The young mother moved on to an apartment, she consulted a therapist, went back to school to finish her degree, took off her headscarf and began an apprenticeship as an electrician. (The brother who pulled the trigger pleaded guilty in German courts, while two different brothers were recently acquitted of the crime, a so-called honor killing that made international news and inspired an earlier 2011 film.).

Film Review: ‘A Regular Woman’ Sherry Hormann’s compelling feature finds a fresh angle on the “honor killing” dramatized in Feo Aladag’s 2010 drama “When We Leave.” Cineuropa is the first European portal dedicated to cinema and audiovisual in 4 languages. The film does not cater to stereotypes along the lines of "Western free world against fanatical Muslim world"; it also denounces for instance the legal system through which only the brother that confessed to the crime was sentenced — a juvenile who faced a reduced sentence. And then the murder is committed. At first, the young, independent and strong woman lived with her family, but in hopes of a self-determined life, she moved with her son to a hostel for single mothers, despite great resistance from her family. Finally, the young woman reports her oldest brother to the police. Her family took her out of school when she was 16, and married her off to a cousin in Turkey. She is part of their plan, intended to take in and care for the little boy after Hatun is dead. "It's about self-determination, about women's self-determination, and our self-determination as human beings, too.". Electronic music plays as she removes her hijab in slow motion. That makes the discrepancy between the dead woman's emotionless voice and her highly emotional story all the more effective.

At the age of 23, almost done with her training and ready to move to Freiburg to continue her education, one of her brothers shot her in the head three times at a Berlin bus stop. This version, an exhausting exercise in condescension, jarringly begins with news footage from the actual murder scene.