FRANCE: Former Berlinale winner Fatih Akin brings new film "The Edge of Heaven" to Cannes

Record ID: 862620

  • Title: FRANCE: Former Berlinale winner Fatih Akin brings new film "The Edge of Heaven" to Cannes
  • Date: 24th May 2007
  • Summary: CANNES, FRANCE (MAY 22, 2007) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF DIRECTOR FATIH AKIN BEING INTERVIEWED (2 SHOTS)
  • Embargoed: 8th June 2007 13:00
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  • Location: France
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  • Country: France
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  • Reuters ID: LVAAHADP2QCMZ76TL7QYL6ZBI5IQ
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  • Story Text: German-Turkish film-maker Fatih Akin, who won the Berlin Festival with "Head On" brings his latest film to Cannes with hopes high that another award could be in the offing.
    German-Turkish director Fatih Akin's latest film "The Edge of Heaven", showing At the Cannes festival, carries on from his 2003 success "Head On".
    Akin, who shot to prominence when "Head On" won the Golden Bear prize at the Berlin film festival, looks at some of the same issues of identity and belonging in both films.
    "The Edge of Heaven" tells the story of three families whose lives intertwine after two senseless deaths, one in Germany, the other in Turkey.
    The action is divided between the German cities of Bremen and Hamburg and Istanbul, the setting for Akin's 2005 musical documentary "Crossing the Bridge".
    Nejat, a lecturer played by Baki Davrak, goes to Turkey in search of Ayten, a young woman whose mother, Yeter, has been living with his father in Germany when she is accidentally killed during an argument.
    At the same time Ayten, played by Nurgul Yesilcay, comes to Germany to escape the police after other members of the illegal leftist political group to which she belongs are arrested.
    There she is befriended by a young German student, Lotte, played by German actress Patrycia Ziolowska, who finds meaning in helping the refugee activist.
    Akin is less explicitly concerned with the issue of Turkish-German identity, and is less violent than "Head On" but the question forms a constant backdrop to the film's central theme of love, death and reconciliation and the role of fate in life.
    "There is a violence in the film, but I tried to make the violence so calm and so normal so, if you want, gentle as possible, not like in 'Head On'," Akin said.
    Germany's Turkish community of some three million, which grew out of the post World War Two "guest workers", has had an often troubled experience although it now forms a core part of German society.
    As a former Golden Bear winner at the Berlin film festival, German hopes are high that he can go one step further and win the Palme D'or in Cannes.
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