Movie director, producer, scenarist. He
was born on the 25th of August 1973 in Hamburg, Germany. His family
originally comes from Trabzon’s district, Sürmene. Starting from young ages he
started to be interested in cinema. He graduated from Hamburg Academy of Fine Arts Department of Visual Communication (2000). In his university years, he
started to work with Wüste Film Company. He started his career as an actor with
the character “Erdal” in the television series called Doppelter Einsatz which
lasted for three years.
He shot in 1995 his first short movie “You're the one! / Du bist es! / O Sensin”.
The movie was deemed worthy of Public Prize in Hamburg International
Short-Length Film Festival. The next year he directed his second short movie Getürkt. In 1998, he shot his first
full-length movie Kurz und Schmerzlos /
Short Sharp Shock / Kısa ve Acısız. Later he started to be mentioned among
the best directors with the movies he directed. His movie Duvara Karşı (Head-On) whose leading roles were played
by Meltem Cumbul, Güven Kıraç, Sibel Kekilli and Birol Ünel attracted a wide
attention. He received the prize of Golden Bear in best movie branch in Berlin Festival,
which is regarded as one of the most famous cinema festivals in Germany and in
the world. The actors Birol Ünel and Sibel Kekilli were also granted Golden
Bear awards in best actor and best actress branches. It was chosen as the best
movie of the year by Newsweek and Time Out New York, which is one of the most popular magazines of
United States. Time Out New York’s
cinema critic David Fear defined the movie as 'Pure Perfection’.
Akın, who became known in artistic
environments of Europe at young ages, carried the spiritual traces of social
structures he came from to his movies. In his narrations, one can find ethnic
minorities who are regarded as “others”, families under an intensive
communication pressure and people who are depressed between various identity
tensions. He defined Istanbul as “the city I am in love with” and
screened it in his documentary Crossing
The Bridge – The Sound of Istanbul (2005) with the contrasts and colorfulness
in a musical way. He took the audience to a different Istanbul trip,
accompanied by musicians with very different styles such as Orhan Gencebay,
Mercan Dede, Sezen Aksu and Duman. Akın wrote in the same year the scenario of
the movie Kebab Connection directed by Anno Saul and played the
character “Lokman” in the movie “Hırsız Var” whose leading roles
were played by Haluk Bilginer, Mehmet Ali Erbil and Birol Ünel.
In the project Visions of Europe in
which 25 countries of Europe were presented with 25 different short movies
Fatih Akın was elected to shoot the movie of Germany. Each director was asked
to produce a movie, which transmitted their worldview in their country. The
conditions were that the movies passed today or in a near future, had the
length of 5 minutes and each one was produced with the same amount of budget.
Fatih Akın became quite successful with the short movie he shot for this
project.
Akın was part of the jury together with
Salma Hayek, Javier Bardem and Emir Kusturica in 2005 Cannes Film Festival. His
movie Yaşamın Kıyısında was granted
Best Scenario Award in Cannes Film Festival (2007).
WORKS:
SHORT MOVIES: Du bist es! / Sensin! (director-scenarist, 1995), Getürkt (director-scenarist,
1996), Der Name Murat Kurnaz (director-scenarist,
2009).
FULL-LENGTH: Kurz und Schmerzlos / Kısa ve Acısız (director-scenarist,
1998), Black Souls / Kısmet (leading
role, 1999), Im Juli / Temmuz’da (director-scenarist,
2000), Solino (director, 2002), Duvara Karşı (director, 2004), Gegen die Wand (director-scenarist
- producer, 2004), Europäische Visionen (“Die
alten bösen Lieder” part; director-scenarist - producer, 2004), Kebab Connection (scenarist,
2005), Gottesfurcht / Takva (producer, 2006), Auf der anderen Seite / Yaşamın
Kıyısında (director-scenarist - producer, 2007), Chiko (producer, 2007),
Soul Kitchen (director-scenarist - producer, 2009), Min dît (producer, 2009), New York I Love You (director-scenarist,
2009).
DOCUMENTARY: Wir Haben Vergessen Zurückzukehren (director-scenarist, 2001), Crossing The Bridge / The Sound of Istanbul (director-scenarist
–producer, 2005).
MUSIC CLIP: Digger Dance: Digger is a dancer (2002), Aynur Doğan: Rewend (2010).