When Head-On (Gegen die Wand, 2004) won the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival, it was hailed as a turning point for German cinema. Not only was this unconventional love story the first German film in eighteen years to win the prestigious award, but the success of writer-director Fatih Akin was also celebrated as the revival of German auteur cinema. Meanwhile Turkey claimed Akin as its own prodigal son and his film a victory for Turkish cinema. Daniela Berghahn provides a detailed and entertaining account of the film's artistic inspirations, its production history and the debates that surrounded it in the German and Turkish press. Arguing that much of the media discourse on Turkish German identity politics detracted from Akin's remarkable artistic achievement, Berghahn instead situates Head-On in the critical contexts of global art cinema and transnational melodrama. This comparative approach excavates new layers of meaning and offers highly original insights into Akin's landmark film.

In Fatih Akın's Cinema and the New Sound of Europe, Berna Gueneli explores the transnational works of acclaimed Turkish-German filmmaker and auteur Fatih Akın. The first minority director in Germany to receive numerous national and international awards, Akın makes films that are informed by Europe's past, provide cinematic imaginations about its present and future, and engage with public discourses on minorities and migration in Europe through his treatment and representation of a diverse, multiethnic, and multilingual European citizenry. Through detailed analyses of some of Akın's key works—In July, Head-On, and The Edge of Heaven, among others—Gueneli identifies Akın's unique stylistic use of multivalent sonic and visual components and multinational characters. She argues that the soundscapes of Akın's films—including music and multiple languages, dialects, and accents—create an "aesthetic of heterogeneity" that envisions an expanded and integrated Europe and highlights the political nature of Akın's decisions regarding casting, settings, and audio. At a time when belonging and identity in Europe is complicated by questions of race, ethnicity, religion, and citizenship, Gueneli demonstrates how Akın's aesthetics intersect with politics to reshape notions of Europe, European cinema, and cinematic history.