Great story in IHT on Turkish-German filmaker Fatih Akin's new movie "The Edge of Heaven" which will open in New York May 21st at Film Forum. The film was shot in Bremen, Hamburg, Istanbul, the Black Sea Coast and Trabzon in Turkey. It already won a screenplay award at Cannes in 2007. According to the story the movie shares similarities in theme and some settings to his excellent and intense 2003 break-through "Head-On (Gegen Die Wand) ." Great to see he finally has a follow up generating some buzz.
"Head On" is the kind of movie my parents would shut off, it would be simply too intense for them, but for me the images acutely reflect things as they are under the surface in countries like Germany. It was a brave movie to say the least, exploring ideas of alienation, culture clash (Islam in the West in a different non-stereotypical way) and complex interpersonal relationships. Most of all it's a raw open-wound kind of film that is striking in it's intensity.
In the press notes for Edge of Heaven, Akin says "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.." He also cites the book "The Art of Loving" by Erich Fromm as a big influence on the film.
The IHT story also reveals that Akin is currently in New York filming a short film called "Chinatown" for a collection of vignettes to be called "New York, I Love You" - a follow-up to "Paris, Je T'Aime." Anyone know where they are filming ? That's one New York shoot I wouldn't mind having a glimpse at.
Additionally Akin is also busy helming "Garbage in the Garden of Eden," a documentary about an idyllic Turkish village that was turned into a landfill site by government policy, he's collaborating with Martin Scorsese at the World Cinema Foundation to restore lost Turkish cinema treasures and is the producer of a Turkish movie called "Takva" about a devout Muslim living in Istanbul who finds his faith devastatingly tested when he takes on a job as a rent collector for his local imam.
Here is a scene from "The Edge of Heaven"
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