Im Juli

Fatih Akin’s second feature has none of the darkness of his successful début, Kurz und Schmerzlos. Im Juli is a light-hearted and romantic road-movie, filmed in several of the most ‘film-genic’ landscapes of Central Europe.The very boring life of the protagonist Daniel takes an adventurous turn when he falls in love with the stunning Turkish girl Melek. On the spur of the moment, he decides to follow her by car from Hamburg to Istanbul. On the way, he picks up the hitchhiking jewellery seller July, who has been secretly in love with him for ages. Together they face all kinds of hardships and bizarre situations, while Daniel continues to dream of Melek and July keeps hoping that his affections will turn. The journey turns Daniel into a different person; and through all the setbacks he finds out he has to fight for happiness.Akin is a German-born Turk, or a German, born of Turkish parents. One of his reasons to want to make a fantastic fairy-tale after the realistic drama Kurz und Schmerzlos, is because he refuses to be compartmentalised. Thanks to the success of his first film, Akin was able to afford a couple of real stars: the chemistry between Moritz Bleibtreu as the sad and unhip physics teacher Daniel and Christiane Paul as his hopelessly romantic hero-worshipper, contributes greatly to the fascination of the film. Akin is determined to become a commercially successful film-maker and with Im Juli, he is on the right track.