German film director of Turkish origin Fatih Akin will be honoured with the prestigious Douglas Sirk Award at this year’s Filmfest Hamburg which is set to open with the British comedy “Pride.” The award will be presented at the German premiere of Akin’s new film “The Cut”. Akin was at the IFFI festival in Goa two years ago with a package of his films and conducted a workshop for NFDC.
The Douglas Sirk Award is presented annually since 1995 to a personality who has made
Outstanding achievements within film culture and film industry (Previous award winners: Tilda Swinton 2013, Kim Ki-duk 2012, Andreas Dresen and Peter Rommel 2011). “By presenting the Douglas Sirk Award to Fatih Akin, we would like to recognise his work both as a director and as a producer. His films, which are strongly rooted in Hamburg, have put the city on the world map of cinema,” says festival director Albert Wiederspiel about the reasons for this choice.
Gangster films, family sagas, love stories or road movies – Akin’s films defy any boundaries set between genres and stand for young, unconventional cinema. “The Cut” completes Akin’s “Love, Death and the Devil” trilogy which began with the extremely successfully 2004 film “Gegen die Wand” (“Head-On”) which bagged the Golden Bear at the Berlinale, the German Film Award and the European Film Award.
In 2005, he was a member of the jury at Cannes International Film Festival, where he also celebrated the world premiere of his film “Auf der anderen Seite” (“The Edge of Heaven”) in 2007. The film received the Best screenplay Award.“The Cut” which features Tahar Rahim (“A Prophet”) in its starring role, explores the dark side of what humans are capable of. The film is a coproduction between Germany, France, Italy, Russia, Poland, Canada and Turkey.
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Ronita Torcato