Timeout / Auszeit (NOT RELEASED) (TT)

Leila, a young singer of Middle Eastern descends in her late twenties, is a British-Londoner lady through and through; she is managed by her friend and artist-agency owner Linda. On a chilly, yet sunny October day Leila is on her way to Heathrow airport to fly over to Germany since she is booked for a gig in Frankfurt. Once arrived there she encounters Samir, a middle aged Frankfurt Taxi driver, who himself is of Middle Eastern descends as Leila is.

On the ride to the hotel, which is located a bit outside of Frankfurt, both Leila and Samir learn of each other’s common background, yet they stick to English in their chat instead of speaking in Arabic their “mother tongue”; Leila with her fine British-English and Samir with his school English and a German accent. In their seemingly banal conversation they tackle some stereotypes and cultural perceptions of all three cultures: The German, the English and the Arabic.

Samir is attracted to Leila and lets her notice his affinity by his impish talk, contrary to Leila, who sees in Samir just a nice cab driver. Samir drops Leila off at the final destination and thrust his business card in Leila’s hand offering his services as a driver. Leila bids a farewell to Samir and heads to the hotel entrance; she throws away the business card in a paper bin on her way to the counter.

While checking in Leila witnesses a discrimination situation against an elderly man who seems to have a similar background as her’s. After shifting uneasily in her room she realizes that she has thrown away the business card. Leila runs down to the lobby and fishes the card out of the bin.

Samir, while he drives on the highway, receives the unexpected yet awaited phone call from Leila asking him to pick her up for a ride. He drives to the hotel and meets Leila, who has been waiting in front of the Hotel. She gets into the cap and they drive away towards Frankfurt having a chat in broken Arabic and listing to Dalida’s Song “Baladi”.