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Fatih Akin (August 25, 1973 in Hamburg, Germany) is a Turkish-German film director.In 1994 he attended Hamburg's College of Fine Arts to study visual communications and graduated in 2000.
Akin made his debut as director of a full length film already in 1998
with Kurz und schmerzlos (Short Sharp Shock), which brought him the
award "Bronze Leopard" at Locarno, Switzerland and the "Pierrot", the
Bavarian Film Award for the best young director in Munich the same
year. Since then he has directed features like Im Juli (In July) in
2000, Wir haben vergessen zurückzukehren (We forgot to go back) in 2001
and Solino in 2002. His fourth work, Gegen die Wand (Head-On) with
Sibel Kekilli as main actress was a great success in 2004 and received
several prizes, among them the Golden Bear award at the Berlin Film
Festival and the "Best Film" and the "Audience Award" at the 2004
European Film Awards.
In 2005 he directed a documentary about Istanbul music scene, named
Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul, which includes musicians
from Ceza to Sezen Aksu to Aynur and Brenna MacCrimmon. It is narrated
by a member of a German experimental band Einstürzende Neubauten,
Alexander Hacke, who also produced music for Head-On.
In 2006, he was investigated by German police after wearing a T-Shirt
with a Nazi swastika, intending to equate the George W. Bush
administration with the Third Reich.
In 2007, Akin's The Edge of Heaven, a German-Turkish cross-cultural
tale of loss, mourning and forgiveness, won the prize for best
screenplay at the 60th Annual 2007 Cannes Film Festival.
On October 24, 2007, the same film was awarded the first edition of the
LUX prize for European cinema by the European Parliament.
Themes
In Fatih Akın's cinema, the lives of German Turks are a recurring
theme. Their struggles and their confusion about two different
cultures. In Head-On, two different cultures are presented, the
conservative Muslim and Turkish view of Sibel's family, and Sibel's
open ideas about sex. Cahit is presented to be somewhat a mixture of
these two ideas and cultures, representing a struggling Turk. Akin, on
the other hand, has never denied his Turkish roots and even accepted
the Cannes award in the name of Turkish cinema.
Filmography
- 1995 Sensin... You're the One! (German title: Sensin - Du bist es!)
- 1996 Weed (German title: Getürkt)
- 1998 Short Sharp Shock (German title: Kurz und schmerzlos)
- 2000 Im Juli
- 2001 Denk ich an Deutschland - Wir haben vergessen zurückzukehren
- 2002 Solino
- 2004 Head-On (German title: Gegen die Wand, Turkish title: Duvara karşı)
- 2004 Visions of Europe (segment "Die bösen alten Lieder", German title: Europäische Visionen)
- 2005 Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul
- 2006 Soul Kitchen
- 2007 The Edge of Heaven (German title: Auf der anderen Seite, Turkish title: Yaşamın Kıyısında)
- 2008 New York, I Love You(announced)
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