The second feature film from German-Turkish director Fatih Akin, The Edge of Heaven, is also Germany's entry in the upcoming Oscar Foreign Language Films race.

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"Best known for Head-On, Akin has, in a short period, risen to become one of the most significant voices of contemporary German cinema. While it may be a stretch to refer to him as heir apparent to Fassbinder, there is something in his realist style and readiness to engage in social and political issues that reminds one of the great master. " reports Piers Handling.

What's it About: Retired widower Ali ( (Tuncel Kurtiz) sees a solution to loneliness when he meets prostitute Yeter ( (Nursel Köse), Ali proposes to the fellow Turkish native to live with him in exchange for a monthly stipend. Ali’s bookish son Nejat ( (Baki Davrak), seems disapproving about his bully father’s choice. But the young German professor quickly grows fond of kind Yeter, especially upon discovering most of her hard-earned money is sent home to Turkey for her daughter’s university studies.

The accidental death of Yeter distances father and son even more, emotionally and physically. Nejat travels to Istanbul to begin an organized search for Yeter’s daughter Ayten ((Nurgül Yeşilçay). He decides to stay in Turkey and trades places with the owner of a German bookstore who goes home to Germany.

What Nejat doesn’t know is that 20-something political activist Ayten is already in Germany, having fled the Turkish police. Alone and penniless, Ayten is befriended by German student Lotte, who is immediately seduced by the young Turkish woman’s charms and political situation. Lotte invites rebellious Ayten to stay in her home, a gesture not particularly pleasing to her conservative mother Susanne. Ayten ends up arrested and confined for months while awaiting political asylum. When her plea is denied, Ayten is deported and imprisoned in Turkey.

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Passionate Lotte decides to abandon everything to help Ayten. In Turkey, Lotte gets caught up in the frustrating bureaucracy of the seemingly hopeless situation of freeing Ayten. A chance bookstore meeting will lead her to becoming Nejat’s roommate. A tragic event will bring Susanne to Istanbul to help fulfill her daughter’s mission. Emotional moments spent with Susanne will inspire Nejat to seek out his estranged father, now residing on Turkey’s Black Sea coast.

Fatih Akin speaks about the film: I put so much into the making of HEAD-ON (GEGEN DIE WAND), that when I finished, I had no idea what to do next. On my previous films, I had always known what I was doing next before finishing the current one. So there I was in this bad situation not knowing what to do. Ironically, to make matters worse, HEAD-ON became a big success for me.

I wasn’t expecting it. As great as it was, success doesn’t make everything easier. I got even more blocked. I felt pressured to come up with something better than HEAD-ON. I wanted to do better artistically. I had to prove to myself that HEAD-ON wasn’t the best I could do. I relate a lot of things to sports, so I kept thinking that I didn’t want to go out in the first round. I was faced with the challenge of following up HEAD-ON. Being faster than Carl Lewis. Being Ben Johnson.

A Trilogy in the works: Filmmaking is a big part of my life, but it pales next to issues like birth, love and death. To really grow up, I felt I had to make three films. Call it a trilogy if you want to, but it’s basically three films that belong together because of their themes of love, death and evil. HEAD-ON was about love. THE EDGE OF HEAVEN is about death. Death in the sense of every death is a birth. Like both death and birth open doors to other dimensions. With THE EDGE OF HEAVEN, I feel like I’m reaching some other level, but something is still missing that will be in the third film about evil. I just feel like I have to tell something to the end. These three films are kind of my homework, then I can move on. Maybe move on to genre films, film noir, western, even horror.

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More on the film: THE EDGE OF HEAVEN was shot in Germany – Bremen and Hamburg, and in Turkey – Istanbul, the Black Sea Coast and Trabzon. The shoot lasted about 10 weeks. For a filmmaker, Turkey is a great place to shoot. Shooting in Germany is much less interesting. It can be attractive, but you have to look hard or create it. The light is extraordinary in Turkey because of its geographic position. For me, shooting in Istanbul is like shooting in New York. They’re both attractive and cosmopolitan.

Each city is a megalopolis. I love to shoot in cities. I’m a big city child. It’s what I know. In THE EDGE OF HEAVEN, the city of Istanbul is actually a character. Since she doesn’t speak the language, foreigner Lotte becomes lost as she confronts Istanbul. But I also wanted to break the urban image with scenes in the countryside and the coast.

In Between Two Cultures: I have this Turkish background and I have this German background. I was born in Germany, but I’m in between the two cultures. Educated in Europe, but also raised in Turkish by my parents. Turkish culture has always been a part of my life. I traveled to Turkey with my family every summer since I was a kid. Since I’m in between these two cultures, it’s natural that my films are in between, too.

The Last Word: The challenge for me as a filmmaker is not to repeat myself. I like to surprise myself and ultimately the audience. I hope that all my films will seem different.

[ The Edge of Heaven official website ] [ Fatih Akin ]

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