But, says Timur to his girlfriend, "have you ever seen a Turk playing in a brass band?"

This line early in the new film Turquaze sets the scene: a 20-something son of Turkish immigrants tries to find his place - both culturally and socially - in Ghent.

Several situations complicate Timur's life: his girlfriend, the outgoing, loyal Sarah, is Flemish. His older brother is a staunch Muslim patriarch, who rules the family with an iron fist. Timur exists directly in the middle - living with his family in Ghent's Turkish neighbourhood, he is also part of its greater community, having been born in the city, educated in its schools and employed by its Fine Arts Museum. Timur is the great Belgian "multi-cultural" example.

Turquaze, which opens this week across Brussels and Flanders, is the feature film debut of director Kadir Balci, who cast his brother, musician Burak Balci, to play the lead. The film is based on their own experiences growing up in Ghent, where they were never sure if they were "Gentse Turks or Turkish Gentenaars."

Perhaps its these real-life experiences that infuse the film with such a quiet, powerful effect as it delivers its messages through simple everyday realities. Such as when Timur, though an excellent trumpet player, finds it so difficult to walk through the door to face that sea of white band faces. Or when Sarah's mother, finally meeting the man her daughter has been keeping secret for a year, immediately asks him, despite his perfect Dutch, where he is from. Or when we discover that Timur's brother (Nihat Alptug Altinkaya) has a secret that makes him a terrible hypocrit.

The film is careful to not exist in a void: Timur visits his mother (Tilbe Saran) in Istanbul, where she remained after travelling there from Ghent to bury her husband. In one of the film's most poignant moments, she admits to her son that she no longer belongs there. "I didn't find what I was looking for here, either," she says. "Everything has changed."

The film has a heavy tone, but is easily lightened everytime Charlotte Vandermeersch is on screen. As the sexy, scratchy-voiced Sarah, she is a hopeless romantic when it comes to Timur, and it is finally her brave and unex- pected actions that force him to come to terms with the divergent strands of his life.

www.turquazedefilm.be