The second short film of award-winning feature director Fatih Akin, Weed tells the story of a German immigrant who spends the summer holidays with his mother at the sea coast. Luring a recent acquaintance to the abode with the promise of dope, what he actually offers are literal weeds from his mother’s garden—a substitute that proves surprisingly effective. Amusing vignettes combine with drama in this small film that eschews heroes and villains to look simply at life’s survivors.

This affectionate and insightful documentary is a cinematic family album that records the director’s relatives in Hamburg and Turkey in order to explore notions of homeland, the desire to belong, and the ability to move between two cultures. Akin’s father is a Turkish immigrant who established a successful new life as a secular and liberal citizen in his new German homeland and who has never managed to go back “home.” The son, born in Germany and unfettered by his father’s ambivalence, makes a trip back to the town of his father’s birth, finding that answers to the question of identity and homeland are decidedly nuanced and fluid.