Film still of Aus Dem Nichts (In The Fade) © RR
Aus Dem Nichts (In The Fade), a time of revenge with Fatih Akin
The German director of Turkish origin, Fatih Akin, present at Cannes in 2007 with The Edge of Heaven, a film that won him the Best Screenplay Award, is back in Competition with Aus Dem Nichts (In The Fade), a dramatic thriller carried by Diane Kruger.
Fatih Akin has set the story line of his film in Hamburg, his birth town, in the heart of the Turkish community. Aus Dem Nichts (The Edge of Heaven) tells the story of Katja, a young German woman whose life falls apart the day her husband and son are killed in a bomb attack. Katja is scarred by this tragic event, and decides to take revenge.
I wanted this to be a personal film. Katja portrays my own fears and anger.
Fatih Akin chose Diane Kruger, whom he refers to as a "modern-day Marlene Dietrich", to play Katja. This is her first role in German, her mother tongue. The filmmaker uses his main character to talk about loss, mourning and revenge, universal notions "that are the same regardless of culture or nationality".
Ten years after The Edge of Heaven, a cinematic portrait of Germany and Turkey, Fatih Akin looks into the relationships between his native country and his country of origin. The filmmaker felt the need to make a film after the murders committed in Germany by members of the small neo-Nazi group, NSU, killing people of Turkish origin. This is his way of raising the social and political questions that are undermining Europe today.
Aus Dem Nichts (In The Fade) also marks the return of Fatih Akin to the Festival de Cannes after having presented the following films here: Crossing the Bridge – the Sound of Istanbul in 2005, The Edge of Heaven in 2007, and Polluting Paradise in 2012.
