Personal life

Akin was born in 1973 in Hamburg to parents of Turkish ethnicity. He attended the Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg to study visual communications and graduated in 2000.

Fatih Akin has been married since 2004 to German-Mexican actress Monique Obermüller and lives in Hamburg-Altona, where he also grew up. His brother, Cem Akin is an actor.

Work

Akin made his debut as director of a full length film as early as 1998 with Short Sharp Shock (Kurz und schmerzlos), which brought him the "Bronze Leopard" award at the Locarno International Film Festival in Switzerland and the "Pierrot", the Bavarian Film Award for Best New Director in Munich the same year. Since then he has directed feature films such as Im Juli (In July) in 2000, We forgot to go back (Wir haben vergessen zurückzukehren) in 2001 and Solino' in 2002. His fourth work, Head-On (Gegen die Wand), starring Sibel Kekilli, was a major 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 the Istanbul music scene, Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul, which includes musicians such as Ceza, Sezen Aksu, Aynur Doğan 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 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 Cannes Film Festival in 2007. On October 24, 2007, the same film was awarded the first edition of the LUX prize for European cinema by the European Parliament.

His most recent film is the comedy Soul Kitchen (2009). He has said he chose this more light-hearted film because he needed a break after making the "tough" films Head-On and The Edge of Heaven before making his next planned film The Devil. "But", he says, "now I feel ready to finish the trilogy".

In 2012 his documentary film Polluting Paradise was screened in the Special Screenings section at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival.

His 2014 film The Cut has been selected to compete for the Golden Lion at the 71st Venice International Film Festival.

Themes

In Akin's cinema, the lives of German Turks are a recurring theme, such as 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.

Political stance

Akin has been criticized for actions that have been interpreted by some as trivializing the Holocaust and was investigated by German police for wearing a t-shirt with a Nazi swastika in place of the letter "S" in the word "BUSH". Akin defended the t-Shirt as "more than mere provocation" and emphasized:

Bush's policy is comparable with that of the Third Reich. I think that under Bush, Hollywood has been making certain films at the request of The Pentagon to normalise things like torture and Guantanamo. I'm convinced the Bush administration wants a third world war. I think they're fascists.

— Fatih Akin

Collaborations

Actors	Short Sharp Shock	Im Juli	Solino	Head-On	The Edge of Heaven	Soul Kitchen	The Cut
Cem Akin	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Moritz Bleibtreu		Y	Y			Y
Adam Bousdoukos	Y	Y	Y	Y		Y	Y
Stefan Gebelhoff			Y	Y
Demir Gökgöl			Y			Y
Marc Hosemann	Y					Y
Mehmet Kurtuluş	Y	Y		Y
Hermann Lause			Y	Y
Catrin Striebeck				Y		Y
Birol Ünel		Y		Y		Y
İdil Üner	Y	Y			Y
Patrycia Ziółkowska			Y		Y	Y

Awards

• 1998 Bavarian Film Awards, Best New Director
• 2004 Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival
• 2004 European Film Awards, Best Film, Audience Award
• 2007 Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival Golden Orange Award, Best Director
• 2007 Bavarian Film Awards, Best Director
• 2007 LUX Prize for European Cinema awarded by European Parliament
• 2007 Cannes Film Festival, Best Screenplay
• 2010 Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (Verdienstorden der Bundesrepublik Deutschland) for his contribution in depicting the problems of Turkish-Germans.

Filmography

Year	Title	Notes	Awards
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)	Bronze Leopard at Locarno, Switzerland Pierrot at Bavarian Film Award for the best young director
2000	Im Juli	Original Script
2001	Denk ich an Deutschland - Wir haben vergessen zurückzukehren	Original Script
2002	Solino	Original Script
2004	Head-On	(German title: Gegen die Wand, Turkish title: Duvara karşı)	Golden Bear at Berlin Film Festival "Best Film" and "Audience Award" at European Film Awards
2004	Visions of Europe	(segment "Die bösen alten Lieder", German title: Europäische Visionen)
2004	Kebab Connection	Original Script
2005	Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul	Original Script
2007	The Edge of Heaven	(German title: Auf der anderen Seite, Turkish title: Yaşamın Kıyısında)	Best Director at Golden Orange Film Festival Best Screenplay at Cannes Film Festival LUX prize for European cinema by European Parliament
2008	New York, I Love You
2009	Soul Kitchen	Original Script	Special Award of the Jury at Venice International Film Festival
2012	Polluting Paradise	(German title: Der Müll im Garten Eden)
2014	The Cut

[ Source: Wikipedia ]