Aus dem Nichts (In the Fade): Press conference with Fatih Akin and Diane Kruger

Fatih Akin is no stranger to Cannes. He was last in competition with The Edge of Heaven in 2007, which won the Best Screenplay award, and he’s back with a drama about terrorism, starring Diane Kruger. When asked about the topical quality of the film – it’s inspired by the National Socialist Underground murders, whose trial is ongoing – Kruger said: “Unfortunately, we’re living at a time where [terrorist] events are a daily occurrence, [and] you never hear about the people who are left behind. How can you come to grips with such unfairness?”

Kruger plays Katja, a woman whose life is turned upside-down by a bombing that claims the life of her husband and child. The perpetrators are found out to be Nazis, but the courtroom process doesn’t go to plan. On the real-life inspiration of the trial subject, Akin said: “The real scandal wasn’t that neo-Nazis killed ten people – the scandal was that, for ten years, German society thought it was Turkish people. And that made me so angry, it made me sit down and write about it… The layer of the mother character popped up – the layer of grief interested me more.”

The role was originally written for a man, but after meeting Kruger at a previous Cannes, Akin changed the role to one of an Aryan woman. She received an impromptu round of applause for her performance, though she admitted that “this was a part that made me feel rather frightened”. It’s a role that goes to some tough places – places that frightened the director as well. “When you write something, you put a lot of instinct, fantasy in it – your own discussion on what is right or wrong. I don’t know what I would do in such a situation… [And] when you start to think as a father, a parent, then nightmares come into your mind. Filmmaking gives me a possibility to have a dialogue with my nightmares.” On being asked to interpret Katja’s final act in the film, Kruger said, “I don’t think it’s our place to explain our film to you. It’s a proposition of ‘What would you do?’ So ask yourself”.

Sam Gray
Photo: Laurent Emmanuel / Getty Images

Read our review of Aus dem Nichts (In the Fade) here.

Read more of our reviews and interviews from the festival here.

For further information about Cannes Film Festival 2017 visit here.

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