“Fack ju Göhte” Director Bora Dagtekin
Bora Dagtekin is one of Germany’s most successful contemporary filmmakers.
Towards the end of the cinema comedy “Fack ju Göhte”, the question arises why Zeki Müller of all people, a convicted bank robber and involuntary supply teacher, should be able to cope so well with the kids in the school’s dreaded problem class. “He understood us”, replies one pupil – and that’s about the only reason given to explain the success of a teacher who is neither particularly politically correct nor much of an educator. But that pretty much sums up “Fack ju Göhte”: brash, at times wonderfully over-the-top and with an irreverent charm that strikes a chord with the audience. More than seven million people have already flocked to cinemas to see the film in Germany. Bora Dagtekin, who directed the movie and wrote its screenplay, has proven once again that he is adept at creating unconventional characters and picking successful topics.
Director of Turkish-German origin
These days, Dagtekin is a star: only three German films since 1968 have attracted bigger audiences in Germany than “Fack ju Göhte” – the pinnacle so far of an unusual career. Born in Hanover in 1978 to a Turkish doctor and a German teacher, Dagtekin started out as a copywriter and studied screenplay writing at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg. Even while he was still in his final year at the academy in 2006, his series “Türkisch für Anfänger” (i.e. Turkish for Beginners) premiered on television. An international hit, it was nominated among other things for an Emmy award. Dagtekin was widely praised for the creative way in which he played with multicultural clichés in the series about the Öztürk-Schneiders, a German-Turkish patchwork family. The film version of the series attracted audiences of around 2.5 million, making it Germany’s biggest box-office smash of 2012.
Commenting on this success, Dagtekin says: “I believe that many foreigners find very few characters with which they can identify in the comedy genre. Things often proceed in a rather melodramatic direction, the Damocles sword of integration always hanging over everything, meaning that no-one dares to make outright jokes.” Dagtekin, on the other hand, certainly does dare. The title of his latest cinema hit is a cheeky allusion to Goethe, Germany’s “prince of poets”, while Bora Dagtekin himself has used his brash brand of humour to establish himself as one of the most acclaimed directors in German cinema and television.
19th Turkish-German Film Festival from 13 to 23 March 2014 in Nuremberg
