Opening Night

THE EDGE OF HEAVEN

AUF DER ANDEREN SEITE

Directed by Fatih Akin

THURSDAY JANUARY 10 8PM CASTRO
6:30PM - 8PM OPENING NIGHT PARTY CASTRO

Germany’s Oscar bid for 2008, THE EDGE OF HEAVEN, moves us back and forth from Turkey to Germany to tell a complex story of intersecting lives, where the hopes and dreams of the characters become intertwined in a search for love, home and family. The key protagonists are two men and two women – father and son, mother and daughter – who separately comprise two incomplete families. Akin details these lives quickly and efficiently, before upping the pace and the ante. Events take the bookish Nejat to Istanbul in search of Yeter’s daughter while Ayten, ironically, finds herself in Germany looking for her mother. As is so often the case, life takes on its own momentum; the attractive Ayten soon falls in love with a young German woman who lives with her judgmental mother (Hanna Schygulla).
The film offers a very subtle and emotionally engaging depiction of intertwining lives. Paternal, maternal, heterosexual and lesbian love are juxtaposed with questions of family and Heimat. Rich, dense, finely sketched relationships between characters are the defining features of this poignant and at times devastating film.
Fatih Akin’s new feature marks a major step in his career. Best known for HEAD-ON, this Turkish-German filmmaker has, in a short period, risen to become one of the most significant voices of contemporary German cinema. Courtesy of Toronto International Film Festival

IN PERSON Nursel Köse

PURCHASE TICKET

Country
Germany, Turkey, Italy
Year
2006/07
Run Time
35mm, 122 min, color
German, Turkish, English with English subtitles
Cast
Baki Davrak
Nursel Köse
Patrycia Ziolkowska
Hanna Schygulla
Tuncel Kurtiz
Nurgül Ye?ilçay
Camera
Rainer Klausmann
Screenwriter
Fatih Akin
Printsource
Strand Releasing
Awards
LUX Prize for European Cinema 2007
Cannes 2007:
Best Screenplay

Email
strand@strandreleasing.com
Director

Fatih Akin
was born in Hamburg in 1973 and studied visual communications at his hometown’s College of Fine Arts. His feature films include SHORT SHARP SHOCK (1998, B&B 1999), IN JULY (2000), SOLINO (2002, B&B 2004), HEAD-ON (2004, B&B 2005), which won the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival, and the documentary CROSSING THE BRIDGE: THE SOUND OF ISTANBUL (2005). THE EDGE OF HEAVEN (2007) is his most recent film, and won the best screenplay award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.