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Source: X Verlein, DIF
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"Solino" (2002)
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Fatih Akin was born in Hamburg in 1973, and lives and works in the city's Altona district, the setting for several of his films. In 1993, his career began as an actor playing smaller roles in cinema and television films until 1995, when he presented his regular production company (Wueste Film) with "Sensin", his first short film as an author and director.
He attended the Hamburg College of the Arts, and while shooting the short "Weed" (Getuerkt, 1996) he continued to work on the screenplay for "Short Sharp Shock" (Kurz und schmerzlos, 1998). This drama marked the beginning of his career, bringing immediate success and several awards, including the famous Adolf Grimme Award, two nominations for the German Film Awards and the Bronze Leopard at Locarno. It was followed in 2000 by the road movie "In July" (Im Juli, 2000), filmed with an international team in Germany, Hungary, Romania and Turkey. Festival successes in Norway, France, Italy and even Canada and Los Angeles - where Akin's films each received audience awards - were evidence of the young director's ability to communicate with an international audience.
The one-hour documentary "Wir haben vergessen zurueckzukehren" (2001) is a TV production in which Akin tells the story of his parents, who came to Germany with the first wave of immigrants from Turkey during the sixties. In this way he prepared the field for his next feature film, that led him to the far south of Italy in 2001 - in many respects the story "Solino" (2002) corresponds to Akin's own biography. It is about two brothers, the children of Italian "guest workers", who grow up in Germany and struggle for success and happiness. "Solino" was also nominated for this year's German Film Award.
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In his film "Gegen die Wand" (2004) starring Sibel Kekilli and Birol Ünel, the director and author
returns to his own somber beginnings. Nonetheless, this love story
beginning in a psychiatric institution and ending on the Bosphorus, is
- or so Akin believes - evidence of an important development in his
stories: "I have become wiser, somehow, and part of that is that the
heroes of this film don't die. The two lovers go on living, and that's
the main thing!" "Gegen die Wand" won among a lot of other prizes the
Berlinale Golden Bear, the German and the European Film Award for Best
Film of the Year.
Fatih Akin's next film was the Documentary
"Crossing the Bridge - The Sound of Istanbul" (2005) about the music
scene in the turkish capital, followed by the episodic, melancholic
drama "The Edge of Heaven" (Auf der anderen Seite, 2007), which again
won several important awards, among them the Cannes award for the Best
Screenplay and four German Film Awards.
His next film as a director was also highly praised although the film's topic is far more "entertaining": The affectionate neighborhood comedy "Soul Kitchen" (a "dirty regional film", as Akin has put it), starring Adam Bousdoukos in the leading role, was celebrated by the audience at the Venice Film Festival, received stellar reviews from film critics and won with the Special Jury Prize.
Source: German Films Service & Marketing GmbH
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