"Maybe you'll see the last cigarette I smoke," Fatih Akin said as he took a seat at the table and plunked down his little white box of vice. The filmmaker, 42, sported an easy man bun and fiddled with a set of hotel matches, telling the international journalists around him that he's been trying to quit for 10 years.
Akin was in Morocco for the recent 15th Marrakech Film Festival, where he would give a masterclass later that afternoon. The director, born in Germany to Turkish parents, gained critical praise in his early career by plumbing the nuances of mixed heritage and generational-geographical family dynamics with the stunning opuses Head-On (2004) and The Edge of Heaven (2007). Unfortunately, his last film The Cut (2014) was largely considered a disaster. The subject matter around the 1915 Armenian genocide was a courageous attempt at a contentious subject, but the film felt clumsy. It was a departure from his other films, undercutting his gift of spinning raw and complex tales of human morality into cinematic gold.
But, if there was wound licking to be done, it was short-lived. Hours after this interview, he would tell his masterclass audience: "I received criticism from all over the world [for The Cut]. Both sides beat the shit out of me, which I suppose means it has something, right?" And, he's moved onto other films. This year will see the release of Goodbye Berlin, comedy based on the best-selling German YA novel Tschick, and another feature based on the true story of a neo-Nazi serial killer.
An edited interview with the director below.
You're giving a masterclass this afternoon. How do you feel about being considered a "master"?
Don't believe the hype. I'm not a master, I'm a student. I have a lot of doubt on my own work and I always see the mistakes. The older I get, the more fear and doubt appear.
How do you effectively manage the fear and doubt to keep making films?
Filmmaking is like therapy for me; it helps me deal and handle my fears. Maybe it helps me become a better person for myself and for my family. There are some demons inside of me that are forcing me to do films.
For example, when I made The Cut, I worked five years on it, I put a million of my own money into it, and it was not a success at all. I lost a lot of money and a lot of self-confidence. I was full of doubts. But, to do the film, I was in my element -- a fish in the water. I'm so thankful that I can do what I really want to do it. I don't know if I can do it, but I want to do it. That drives me. [lights cigarette]
And for The Cut, you received several death threats. What thoughts went through your mind when that happened?
I think it's cool to get death threats. It speaks for my work. When your art reaches a level where you fear other people -- you fear them with art and not a handgun -- that speaks for my work. This is an award. This is the third time I've gotten death threats -- I've got them from Islamic groups and neo-Nazis, now I get them from the radical Turks -- so I've won three awards. [laughs]
Also, I feel responsibility. My reason to do The Cut was because so many people don't know about the genocide. I think if a society doesn't know about its own ghosts, these ghosts can appear again and again and again. My idea with the film was to create a collective analysis. My work is biographic; I was always observing this cultural integration thing. When you have the culture and values of your parents, and then you have the values of the school and the streets and the news -- you compare. And when you start to compare, you discover gaps. And when you focus on the gaps, that's when it starts to get interesting.
I've noticed that your work is getting increasingly political.
I just finished a film about two 13-year-old teenagers who steal a car and just speak stupid stuff, based on a best-selling German novel Tschick. I was in the editing room when Paris and Beirut happened. My editor and I looked at each other and were like, "What the fuck are we doing here?"
On the other hand, I am definitely starting to doubt that art is able to change the world. Look at the input of films from all over the world, but yet we have so many crises all over the world. So, all the films and art and literature can't stop that. Maybe it's the quality of the art -- or maybe there is no link.
Do you think it's the visibility of good art?
I have nothing against a socialist element of treating art. For instance, the idea that you can have a cinema class from the fifth grade on. I am absolutely in support of teaching kids how to watch movies.
I'm curious what you said earlier about filmmaking as a form of therapy. For instance, in The Edge of Heaven -- that fragile dynamic between the father and son -- how personal was that?
There is a story towards the end of that film, when there is a Bayram, the holy day in the Islamic world. There is the story of Abraham killing his son and taking the sheep -- that was a story I grew up with. With the film, I had the opportunity to express my personal wish. The hero, the son, says that he was always afraid of the story. He asks his father, "Would you also sacrifice me?" And the father responds, "I love you too much. The love I have for you is the stronger than the love I have for God."
I like those lines I have written there -- they help me to see things. That is what I mean by therapy. But, as I get older, I need other things. Like, What does it mean to be married for twenty years / What affect does it have on my sexual life. I might need more therapy in those areas and not so much in the "Turkish murkish" areas because I solved that.