RHEINGOLD

Duration:
138 min

Type:
Fiction

Year:
2023

Director:
Fatih Akin

Producer:
Nurhan Şekerci-Porst, Fatih Akin, Herman Weigel

Country:
Belgium, Germany, The Netherlands, Morocco, Mexico

Languages:
German, Kurdish, Turkish, Dutch, English, Arabic

Subtitles:
Dutch

Xatar’s path from the ghetto to the top of the music charts is a dramatic adventure story. From the hell of an Iraqi prison, Giwar Hajabi came to Germany as a young boy with his family in the mid-1980s and landed at the very bottom. There were opportunities, but many more stumbling blocks. In no time, he went from a petty criminal to a big-time dealer until a shipment goes missing. To settle his debts with the cartel, Giwar plans a legendary gold heist.

Fatih Akin is an internationally successful filmmaker. With his film HEAD ON he won the Golden Bear in 2004. Before that, he had completed his film studies, two short films, a documentary about the migration of his parents from Turkey to Hamburg and three feature films. His next big international success was the drama THE EDGE OF HEAVEN (2007), which received the BEST SCRIPT award at the internationally renowned Cannes Film Festival, followed by the European Film Prize and the German Film Prize. His subsequent Ilm SOUL KITCHEN (2009) won the SPECIAL AWARD OF THE JURY in competition at the Venice Film Festival. With his production company corazón international, founded in 2004, Akin produced, in addition to his own films, the internationally and nationally successful films CHIKO, TAKVA and MIN DÎT – DIYARBAKIR’S CHILDREN, among others. In 2012 he founded the production company Bombero International, which exclusively produces his own films.

The first Bombero production was THE CUT, which was filmed in 2013 and celebrated its world premiere in August 2014 in competition at the 71st International Film Festival in Venice. In 2016 IN THE FADE was filmed with Diane Kruger and Denis Moschitto in the leading roles. The world premiere took place in 2017 and the Ilm received numerous awards, including the prize for best actress (Diane Kruger) in Cannes and the Golden Globe for best foreign language film. It was also selected as the German contribution for the Oscar 2018 and was nominated for the German Film Award in Ive categories, ultimately receiving awards in two categories. The feature Ilm THE GOLDEN GLOVE premiered in competition at the 2019 BERLINALE. RHINEGOLD, based on the biography of gangster rapper Xatar, starring BERLINALE 72’s European Shooting Star Emilio Sakraya, was released in fall 2022.