During this second day of activities of the second stage of the Guanajuato International Film Festival in its state capital, renowned and talented German filmmaker Fatih Akın showed up at the Cervantes Theater to talk about the different aspects of his notable film career in a room filled with hundreds of people who were excited to have the opportunity to listen to what the German filmmaker with Turkish descent had to share.
Only a few months after premiering his latest film, In the Fade, at the most recent edition of the Cannes Film Festival -where his leading actress Diane Kruger was awarded for her performance-, GIFF 2017 was the ideal stage for that film’s second screening and its premiere in the American continent.
Fatih Akın took the opportunity to talk about the film and those filmmakers that inspired him to tell his own stories on the big screen, referring to Martin Scorsese as one of the filmmakers who motivated him the most to do just what he wanted and to follow those dreams.
“I met Scorsese when I was a teenager and I made a list of all the films I had to see, so when I had a chance to see a film by Scorsese, I would see it all year round”, said Akın and he continued talking about the film that inspired his feature film debut.
“Before I made my first film I discovered Mean Streets and it wasn’t that I wanted to make a film like it, it was about people on the streets, corrupt people and religion, so I could identify with a lot of that”, the filmmaker made it very clear that at some point it comforted him to feel like he was understood.
The roots and the multicultural environment in which he unraveled gave Fatih Akın the authentic keys to take on stories about radical collisions in terms of social distances and the dramatic sphere that these imply, or his evident interest for portraying the scaffolding of outsiders, those “with nothing”, those that are exempt from all usual walks of life and who yearn for an encounter that would heal this far-away and banal similarity.
On the elements he usually uses to make his deeply impactful films, Akın said that he sometimes just takes something from anywhere. “My type of cinema is different and I am only the author. When you judge my movies, they are movies you like more than others”.
Besides talking about his life, his beginnings in cinema, his motivations for making films and what inspired him as a creator and to share some useful tips to those who wish to get into the Seventh Art, Faith went back to his film In the Fade, a visceral and intense tale about revenge.
“One of the examples in this film is revenge, so ingrained and so simple, an example of how violence begets more violence. Some people get upset, but flatters me and my work”, said the director before finishing his participation in the 20th edition of GIFF.
Fatih Akın is a reference of current worldwide cinema. His style is forceful, always seeking comprehension of cultural diversity and the integration of immigrants through characters who converge in a prevailing need to belong in places that are radically different to them. This we saw during his Master Class.
