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Fatih Akın was born in 1973 in Hamburg, Germany. He studied Visual Communications at Hamburg′s College of Fine Arts and graduated in 2000. His collaboration with Wueste Film also dates back to this time. In 1995, Akın wrote and directed his first short feature, Sensin - You′re The One! ("Sensin - Du Bist Es!"), which received the Audience Award at the Hamburg International Short Film Festival. His second short film, Weed ("Getuerkt", 1996), received several national and international festival prizes. In 1998, his first full length feature film, Short Sharp Shock ("Kurz Und Schmerzlos") won the Bronze Leopard at Locarno, Switzerland and the Pierrot, the Bavarian Film Award for the best young director in Munich. His other films include: In July ("Im Juli", 2000), We forgot to go back ("Wir Haben Vergessen Zurueckzukehren", 2001), Solino (2002). His fourth work, Head-On, ("Gegen die Wand"), with Sibel Kekilli as the main actress met with a great success in 2004 and received several prizes such as the Golden Bear Award at the Berlin Film Festival and the "Best Film" as well as "Audience Award" at the 2004 European Film Awards. In Fatih Akın′s cinema, the lives of German Turks are a recurring theme, which center on their struggles and confusion about the two different cultures. In 2005, he directed a documentary about Istanbul music scene, named Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul, which includes musicians such as Ceza, Sezen Aksu, Aynur 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, Akın′s The Edge of Heaven (“Auf der anderen Seite”), a German-Turkish cross-cultural tale of loss, mourning and forgiveness, won the Prize for Best Screenplay at the 60th Annual 2007 Cannes Film Festival. In the same year, he was awarded the First Edition of the LUX Prize for European Cinema by the European Parliament. In 2009, Akın′s comedy film, Soul Kitchen, won the Special Jury Prize in the 66th International Venice Film Festival. In 2010, he was awarded "Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres" by the French Minister of Culture.
References: Imdb.com, Wikipedia.org., labiennale.org
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