Fatih Akin

His father made a living cleaning carpets. Her mother as a housekeeper, and later as a primary school teacher. They both came to Germany from Turkey, in search of a better life, first him, in 1965, two years later she. Hamburg would be the city where Fatih would be born, as would his brother Cem, three years older than him, and an actor by profession, also in his films. To the beneficial influence of his mother, he attributes not having ended up in the marginality of crime.

As a child, his interest in movies awoke thanks to Bruce Lee and Eastern Fury . A neighbor had a Super 8 projector and a reel of footage from that film, which he never tired of watching over and over again, also sparking his love of boxing. Fatih proves to be creative and takes an interest in performing arts by participating in school plays and filming with the school camera. He is also fond of writing stories and film scripts. His intimate desire to dedicate himself to the cinema is clear, and he thinks that he will achieve it if he also has acting training.

Initiative is not lacking in Akin when trying to break through. Although she wouldn’t get it made into a movie until 1998, five years before, just out of high school, she sends the script for Short and Sharp.to the production company Wüste Film. There they are impressed by the material received, and they advise the young aspiring filmmaker to apply for a scholarship to study Fine Arts, while they help him shoot his first professional short film. Award-winning shorts and sporadic roles as an actor in TV movies allow him to get his foot in the world of film. Now it is a question of advancing until he is able to make the cinema that he wants to make. Which begins with that script that opened the doors of his incipient career, about a criminal youth gang in Hamburg where he grew up, worthy of an award at Locarno.

The films that follow, Im juli (2000) and Solino (2002), point out the dominant themes in the filmography of the filmmaker, who considers himself more German than Turkish, although without denying his origins: immigration in conflictive urban environments, with the imbrication of the customs of the places of origin with those of reception, and the difficulties in such a context to form a balanced family and love life. This is especially noticeable in the work that establishes him as a filmmaker, Against the Wall(2004), Golden Bear in Berlin, a film that exudes rage and darkness, in its description of the difficulties that a man and a woman face due to their respective cultural contexts, and the slab of addictions and personal misfortunes. The year that success smiles at him, he marries Monique Obermüller, a German of Mexican origin, with whom he has had two children.

That Akin does not renounce his origins is demonstrated by the documentary Crossing the Bridge: The Sounds of Istanbul (2005), a precious tribute to Turkish music. The same year that he shoots that film, Kebab Connection hits the screens , to whose script he contributes extensively, since much of the plot in a comedy tone about a young fan of martial arts movies, who dreams of making movies, is inspired by in his own trajectory.

Al otro lado (2007) wins her the award for best screenplay at Cannes, which is understood by the complexity of the plot tapestry with multiple characters in whose relationships generational difficulties and cultural transplants, lesbian attractions and vital disorientations are addressed. Perhaps it is Akin’s film that most closely resembles Rainer Werner Fassbinder , it would seem that the presence in the cast of his muse, Hanna Schygulla , is no coincidence. And perhaps again looking for a creative balance that allows him a breather, the heartbreaking drama of Al otro lado follows the comedy tone of Soul Kitchen (2009), pouting Greek immigrants, of course in Hamburg.

With the baggage described up to this moment, a film such as The Father (2015), a look at the Armenian genocide at the hands of the Turks, released in the year in which its centenary is commemorated , may be surprising in Akin’s filmography , and whose staging has dedicated four years. Of course it is observed that the filmmaker does not shy away from conflicting issues related to his country of origin, where many today refuse to acknowledge that such a genocide took place. The idea of ​​addressing the issue was born in 2007, when the journalist of Armenian origin Hrant Dink was assassinated in Turkey. The approach of dedicating a film to him led to a broader look at the tragedy that marks 100 years.

The images in Cinemascope are visually striking, and there is that rage of his so characteristic of banging his head against the wall in the face of fatal adversity. When mentioning influences, the director mentions America, America , by Elia Kazan . The film adds contradictions for its protagonist in the purest soap opera style, but Akin’s credit is that it doesn’t seem like a soap opera, but rather a heartbreaking drama about love and convictions put to the test, which he compares to a western or a road-movie. , and that leaves room for hope. The script has been signed jointly by Mardik Martin , of Armenian ancestry and expressly recommended by Martin Scorsese , for whom he wrote the scripts forMean Streets and Raging Bull . And it serves to close what he considers a trilogy about love ( Against the wall ), death ( On the other side ) and the devil ( The father ).