with Fatih Akin
Cannes, May 2025
Premiering at the Cannes Film Festival, Amrum marks a deeply personal collaboration between Fatih Akin and German cinema icon Hark Bohm. Set in the final days of World War II, the film approaches postwar Germany through childhood memory, language, and moral responsibility, offering an unusually light yet unsettling perspective on one of history’s darkest chapters.
Below is our Conversation with Golden Globe winner Fatih Akin on his lates movie Amrum. We met him in Cannes, right after the premiere.
Image courtesy of Burcu Beaufort
Burcu Beaufort: Can you tell me about your relationship with Hark Bohm?
Fatih Akin: He is an icon in German cinema. I first saw his film Nordsee ist Mordsee on TV in the early ’80s – it was a masterpiece. For me it’s still one of the best and most important films I’ve ever seen. Then he made Yasemin in ’88. That film made me a filmmaker – a German filmmaker. Before that, at 15, I thought I had to go to Hollywood to make films. But this film about a Turkish girl running away from home, literally set right on my streets, struck me deeply.
I was angry about how Turkish people were portrayed: on the one hand, I was fascinated because it was on my street, but on the other, I thought, Turkish people are not like that, Turkish people don’t speak German! Why did he let them speak German?! It didn’t feel true. I told myself I would become a filmmaker and do it better. That’s how Head-On came about. Hark influenced me a lot. We became friends – he was my teacher, though not in film school, because he didn’t accept me when I tried to get in. Years later, he asked me to teach at the school. We collaborated on In the Fade and Goodbye Berlin, and he acted in The Golden Glove. Later I convinced him to write Amrum.
BB: What did you draw from to create this period piece? On Amrum, the island the film takes place, did people talk to you about the time – 1945?
FA: There aren’t too many people but for example the opening shot, this bombing scene; as we were filming it we met a farmer saying that his grandfather told him the exact same story of the film. Even though they are Hark’s memories, they are similar to memories of the people who lived there during that period, just like Hark himself.
BB: Was Hark Bohm there during the film production?
FA: He was too sick to do so but he guided us a lot, telling us whom to talk to, whom to ask what. And through his guidance one particular family became the dialogue coach. Because the language they speak is not German, it’s Frisian. It’s something else, closer to Danish or Icelandic.
BB: It was funny to hear Diane Kruger speaking Frisian. I loved her character. She is so wonderful in the movie. Did the actors have to take lessons to speak the language?
FA: They had to learn it phonetically. It was too difficult to learn it grammatically or in a normal way you would learn a language. So, they got their lines and learned how to speak them in Frisian with the help of the family. Three generations of that family were our coaches. But of course they knew what they were saying.
BB: Considering your Turkish origin, did that give you a different perspective? Given that with Amrum you delved into a dark part of Germany’s history.
FA: There was a German journalist I talked to, and she said, Maybe only you could do it this way. I don’t know about that, I really don’t know.
BB: Maybe because there’s no guilt?
FA: I feel guilty.
BB: You do? I mean, the movie is so light in a way, it’s a very simple story. This boy just wants white bread, honey, and butter for his mother. Then all of a sudden we are thrown into one of the darkest periods in human history, yet it is paradoxically so heartwarming, and beautifully shot in pastel colours. I don’t feel like German movie makers would approach this topic with this lightness. Thus the statement rings true that only you could do the movie.
FA: I really don’t know about that.
BB: Why do you feel guilty?
FA: Before I did my film The Cut, I was like – the Holocaust is not my guilt. It’s not in my DNA. Germans should deal with that. So, when I did The Cut, what I learned was, it’s another genocide. I learned that it doesn’t matter which nation – this is what humans did to other humans. And as a human, I’m responsible for humans. I think it’s too simple to say, “It’s not my responsibility.” It’s all our responsibility, I truly believe that.
BB: Has it surprised you personally, that you have become a teller of German historical stories?
FA: I make films about my home, and my home is Germany. Take The Golden Glove for instance. It is about the trauma after the Second World War. It is about how to live with a trauma: with a lot of alcohol. Drink, forget, drink, forget. In a way, the two films are very much connected. And honestly, regarding Amrum, my take was not political in the first place. Of course, I’m aware of it, but my intention was to do this film as an adventure film in the tradition of Stand By Me by Rob Reiner. Or the writings by Mark Twain. I’m a German filmmaker, I’m not a Turkish filmmaker. I have Turkish heritage, but I don’t live in Turkey.
BB: Why did Hark Bohm want to make this film now?
FA: He actually wanted to do another film about Konrad Morgen, a nazi judge who was going against the massive corruption within the Third Reich. Hark had almost written the screenplay for it but it got rejected by the producers, both because of the expenses and the subject matter. Hark was very dejected about this. You know, 80 years old, he says This is supposed to be my last film, and I can’t do it. So I asked him: Why do you have to do this film in the first place? What is the idea behind it? Then he explained, My mother was a Nazi. My father was a Nazi. But I loved them because they were my parents. That’s why I want to do this film. And I said, Why don’t you do a film about that, about your childhood? He explained how he was on the island and his father was arrested in front of him later after the war. I went on saying Write that, that’s different. This is the film you should do.