Gegen die Wand

Fatih Akin tells an intense love tragedy of a young Turkish woman as a dark version of "An Immoral Offer".

The young Turkish woman Sibel (Sibel Kekilli) wants to escape the constraints of her traditional family - and marries the alcoholic Cahit (Birol Ünel) as a pretense. The marriage is based on an agreement: he pretends to be a loving husband to his family, while she does the laundry, cooks and plays the housewife for him. But then Cahit becomes more and more attracted to Sibel - until disaster strikes and he kills her lover in a drunken rage.

Fatih Akin's powerful, sad and beautiful love story came as a complete surprise when it was awarded the Golden Bear at the 2004 Berlinale. And rightly so: the leading actors Birol Ünel and Sibel Kekilli bring their self-destruction to the screen with such passionate force that true poetry shimmers through their tragedy.