The German director of Turkish descent Fatih Akin (In the Fade, The Edge of Heaven) won the Golden Bear at the 2004 Berlin Film Festival with Head On, a turbulent story of love and passion between two misunderstood characters. Cahit and Sibel meet in a hospital, where they have been admitted after suicide attempts. Each has his own reasons: Cahit leads a life of alcohol and drugs after losing his wife, while Sibel tries to escape her restrictive family environment. Together they defy traditional values when they decide to marry for convenience so that Sibel can stop living with her family. This union results in a destructive sexual and sentimental relationship, which the director portrays with acute rawness. Akin, whose life and work are at the intersection of two cultures, reflects this experience in his characters, rebellious spirits united by a desire for freedom.
Fatih Akin
He was born in Hamburg in 1973 into a family of Turkish immigrants and studied atthe Higher School of Fine Arts. ‘Short Sharp Shock’ (1999), his debut featureand the film that made him the glittering star of German cinema after winning the Bronze Leopard at Locarno. He rose to international fame in 2004 with ‘Head-On’, for which he won the Golden Bear and the Fipresci award at Berlin, and two European Film awards. In 2007 he participated for the first time in Cannes with ‘The Edge of Heaven’, which won the award for best script, and in 2009 he debuted in Venice with ‘Soul Kitchen’ (Special Jury prize and Youth award). In 2014 he completed his trilogy ‘Love, Death and the Devil’ with ‘The Cut’. ‘In the Fade’ earned him a Golden Globe and the best actress award for Diane Kruger at Cannes in 2017. He has taken part in omnibus films such as ‘Visions of Europe’ (2004) or ‘New York, I Love You’ ( 2008).
Screenings
O.V. in German, Turkish, English subtitled in English and Spanish
![Logo Foro Cultural de Austria Madrid[1]](https://www.seminci.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Logo-Foro-Cultural-de-Austria-Madrid1-300x76.jpg){kind=logo}
