Fatih Akin

Fatih Akin (Turkish: Fatih Akın, born 25 August 1973) is a German and Turkish film director, screenwriter and producer.^[1] His films have won numerous awards and accolades, including the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival for his film Head-On (2004), Best Screenplay at the Cannes Film Festival for his film The Edge of Heaven (2007), and the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film for his film In the Fade (2017).

Fatih Akin
Akin in 2024
Born	(1973-08-25) 25 August 1973 (age 51) Hamburg, West Germany
Occupation(s)	Film director, screenwriter, producer
Years active	1995–present
Spouse	Monique Obermüller ​ (m. 2004)​
Children	2

Early life

Akin was born in Hamburg to Turkish parents.^[2] He has one brother, Cem Akin, who works as an actor. He attended the University of Fine Arts of Hamburg to study visual communications and graduated in 2000.^[3]

Akin has been married to German-Mexican actress Monique Obermüller since 2004. The couple live in Hamburg-Altona, close to where he was raised.^[4] They have two children.^[5]

Career

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 In July (Im Juli) in 2000, We forgot to go back (Wir haben vergessen zurückzukehren) in 2001 and Solino' in 2002.

His fourth film, 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.^[6][7] On 24 October 2007 the same film was awarded the first edition of the LUX prize for European cinema by the European Parliament.^[8]

Akin in 2009

About 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".^[9]

In 2012, his documentary film Polluting Paradise was screened in the Special Screenings section at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival.^[10][11]

His 2014 film The Cut was selected to compete for the Golden Lion at the 71st Venice International Film Festival.^[12][13]

In 2017, Akin's film In the Fade was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or in the main competition section at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival.^[14][15] At Cannes that year, Diane Kruger won the Best Actress award.^[16] The film was subsequently selected as the German entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 90th Academy Awards,^[17] making the December shortlist.^[18] In the Fade won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film.^[19]

Works

Feature films

Year	English Title	Original Title	Notes
1998	Short Sharp Shock	Kurz und schmerzlos	Bronze Leopard at Locarno Film Festival
2000	In July	Im Juli.
2002	Solino
2004	Head-On	Gegen die Wand	Golden Bear winner
2007	The Edge of Heaven	Auf der anderen Seite	Best Screenplay at 2007 Cannes Film Festival
2009	Soul Kitchen		Special Jury Prize at 66th Venice International Film Festival
2014	The Cut
2016	Goodbye Berlin	Tschick
2017	In the Fade	Aus dem Nichts	Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film
2019	The Golden Glove	Der goldene Handschuh
2022	Rhinegold	Rheingold
2025	Amrum		[20]

Documentaries

Year	English Title	Original Title	Notes
2005	Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul
2012	Polluting Paradise	Der Müll im Garten Eden

Other credits

Year	Title	Notes	Awards
1995	Sensin... You're the One!	Short film (German title: Sensin – Du bist es!)
1996	Weed	Short film (German title: Getürkt)
1997	Back in Trouble	Actor
2001	Denk ich an Deutschland … [de] – Wir haben vergessen zurückzukehren	TV documentary series episode
2004	Visions of Europe	(segment Die bösen alten Lieder, German title: Europäische Visionen)
2004	Kebab Connection	Co-writer
2004	Hırsız Var	Actor (Lokman)
2005	Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul	Documentary
2008	New York, I Love You	A segment

Video games

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2025	Death Stranding 2: On the Beach	Dollman	Likeness only

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^[21]
• 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 for his contribution in depicting the problems of Turkish-Germans.^[22]
• 2018 Golden Globe Award, Best Foreign Language Film

Collaborations

Actors	Short Sharp Shock	In July	Solino	Head-On	The Edge of Heaven	Soul Kitchen	The Cut
Cem Akin	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Moritz Bleibtreu		Y	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	Y
Patrycia Ziółkowska			Y		Y	Y	Y