Three comrades in the cinema | Milena Aboyan: “The pain and suffering are real”

The friendship of the three young women is characterized by deep solidarity. Photo: IMAGO/Alexander Gonschior You wrote the script and directed it. How did you come up with the idea of ​​adapting Shida Bazyar's novel?

That was shortly before shooting my first film, “Elaha.” The producer Benjamin Zerhau called me and said he had read “Three Comrades” and thought it was great – wouldn’t we want to adapt it? I knew the book and thought it was great too. I was particularly impressed by the description of the friendship between the three women. But adapting it? I thought that wasn't possible. It is not told chronologically, but jumps from A to B, without an introduction, without a conclusion. I said: "Let me finish filming 'Elaha' first." Later I met Shida Bazyar, talked to her and then thought: "Let's just do it!"

The friendship of the three young women is characterized by deep solidarity and an open, critical approach to one another. How would you characterize their relationship?

These three women share their earliest childhood memories, know their ups and downs. They had to endure a lot: racism, sexism and classism. Either a friendship breaks down under such pressure or you become friends. It's exciting because the three are very different. Hani is highly assimilated. She closes her eyes to problems and says: "If we are a minority: let's not be a crying minority!" Then there is Saya, who has had a sense of injustice from an early age and has an unbridled anger within her. And there's Kasih, trying to keep everything in balance. The story begins at the moment when Saya supposedly carried out an arson attack. This raises the question: Will there be a break? Is the friendship ending?

Milena Aboyan lives and works as a director and screenwriter in Hamburg. She was born in Armenia and grew up in Germany. She completed acting training before studying screenwriting and directing at the Baden-Württemberg Film Academy. Her graduation film “Elaha” (2023) premiered at the Berlinale in the Perspective German Cinema section. In 2023, Aboyan directed the crime scene “Survive at least until tomorrow.” “Three Comrades” is the film adaptation of the novel of the same name by Shida Bazyar, which was awarded the German Book Prize in 2026 for “The Gaps”.

Much of the story is unclear: what is fiction, what is reality? How did you translate this ambiguity into film?

It was immediately clear to me as the director: Saya did not carry out the arson attack. It's about the way people talk about who is being targeted and which narratives are strengthened in order to press their own truth into the picture. It's a lot about invented reality, as spread by some media companies. Above all, it's about Kasih, who in the film gets the opportunity to tell her story to a journalist. With Kasih we have an unreliable narrator who does not report in a linear manner. The novel is also about the NSU trials, but we wanted to move away from that because otherwise we would have had to be very factual. The focus is not on real events, but on issues that trouble us in reality. In the end we learn that Kasih lied. But the pain and suffering is real - and that's what we tried to tell in our film.

While a lot can remain unclear in a novel, film reveals more because images can be seen and language can be heard. How did you deal with ambiguity?

That was actually a challenge. In the book, for example, we learn nothing about the countries of origin of the three women's parents. It is implied that Hani comes from a country where there is war. Saya's mother had to hide in the mountains. So she could be a Kurdish freedom fighter. Things like this are clearer in the film, so we had to decide for ourselves. I deliberately didn't ask Shida Bazyar because I said: That's my interpretation, the book and the film are something different.

Kasih says at the beginning of the film: "I am not the product of an integrated society and not the girl from the ghetto." What role does the examination of stereotypes and attributions play?

It was important to me to make an entertaining film. Visually, we made an effort to make everything look a little more “glossy” and not show any familiar images. There is a moment in which Kasih says: "They say that we grew up in a socially disadvantaged area, but I met the most socially strong people there." We begin the story with the image of a place where there are syringes on the playground and where people throw garbage out of the window. This confirms prejudices. But in the next picture we break with that and show: There are people here who share with each other and for whom the doors are open. I don't want to romanticize it at all. We should take poverty seriously. Nevertheless, stereotypical images are often wrong. Breaking with them is a stylistic device that shouldn't be used too often, otherwise it becomes predictable.

How did you find your protagonists?

I wrote the first line and then immediately called Bayan Layla because we had already done “Elaha” together and we just work well together. Bayan is very perfectionist and puts a lot of effort into the preparatory work. Sometimes we have so little time on set that this is extremely important. She has a great attitude, I really like that. We cast Manal Raga a Sabit in a classic way. She couldn't come to the casting for health reasons. But I saw a photo of her and thought: I don't want to miss her - even though we had many good applicants. That's why we arranged to meet her again. When she came through the door and I heard her voice and saw her attitude, I thought: "Wow, it's good that we waited." For Hani, we were looking for an actress who doesn't immediately make you think of a migrant. Brikena Ray said that people often say to her: "Awesome, you don't look like an Albanian at all." We really liked the tenderness that she brings.

How did the exchange with Shida Bazyar continue? Has she seen the film?

Yes, that was very exciting. Because it's a huge responsibility to make a film into a book. She brought the story into the world - and suddenly it's a film. It was important to me that she would see the first version of the film and give feedback. I was afraid that she might not like it. I couldn't read your answer for several days because I was so excited. But she was really very positive. I then thought: No matter how the film is received, the novelist is happy, and that makes me very happy.

How would you like the film to be received?

When I ask this question, I have to remember that we just posted an excerpt from the film on social media. It's about a store detective with a migrant background who says: "Now that everyone knows that the attack was carried out by a migrant, people are spitting on me." That's of course overdramatic. It only took a few hours until there were things in the comment columns that were not okay and in some cases racist. This showed how quickly fronts form. The discourse has hardened. I would like people to meet each other more openly and exchange ideas in a respectful way. Maybe as a filmmaker I can create a basis for discussion. We don't have to agree, but we do have to listen to each other and accept other people's views.

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