Fatih Akın's emotional film on global terrorism

Fatih Akın's "In the Fade," an emotional and powerful film about global terrorism, stands a strong chance at receiving a prize at the awards ceremony of the 70th Cannes Film Festival. The film was viewed by the international press on the morning of May 26, with Akın answering questions from journalists after the screening. 

The main concern for Akın, a German director born to a Turkish family, is to focus on the lives of people, especially mothers, who are left behind, instead of analyzing the political motives of the murderers, in this case, members of the NSU movement, a neo-fascist movement in Germany, responsible for killing many immigrants. Akın said it does not matter who the terrorist is; they could have been from another organization with other political motivations. 

"In the Fade" is a family film as well as a thriller. Akın portrays a German woman whose Turkish husband and six-year-old child are killed in a terrorist attack in Hamburg. The woman decides to punish the killers, after they were set free by judges, who said the evidences were not justified. We witness her hesitation in making a decision. Which direction will she go? The director describes the emotional changes the character (wonderfully acted by Diane Kruger) undergoes in this process. 

"In the Fade" enables its audience to identify with the main character; which is not the case in some of the best films in this year's competition, such as "Happy End," "Loveless" or "The Square," which tell their stories from a distance. 

Akın's film is composed of three parts, titled "Family," "Justice" and "Sea" ("Sea" is representing death). The globalization of terror is an issue for the film. Akın underlines the existence of a global network of neo-Nazis, but does not go...