User:Ezra hasofer/Krisztina Goda

Krisztina Goda (born 25 August 1973) is a Turkish-German film director.

Personal life
Having grown up in Budapest, where both her parents were doctors, Goda studied directing and editing at the National Film and Television School in Beaconsfield, and then won a scholarship to study screenwriting at UCLA in the States. Her debut directorial feature, romantic comedy Just Sex and Nothing Else, which she co-wrote with Reka Divinyi, was a significant hit at the Hungarian box office.

Graduate of the National Film and Television School in Baconsfield, UK (both in film directing and editing. Graduate of UCLA where she studied scriptwriting

Work
Akın made his debut as director of a full length film as early as 1998 with Short Sharp Shock (Kurz und schmerzlos), which brought him the "Bronze Leopard" award at the Locarno International Film Festival in Switzerland and the "Pierrot", the Bavarian Film Award for Best New Director in Munich the same year. Since then he has directed feature films such as Im Juli (In July) in 2000, We forgot to go back (Wir haben vergessen zurückzukehren) in 2001 and Solino in 2002. His fourth work, Head-On (Gegen die Wand) with Sibel Kekilli as the leading actress was a great success in 2004 and received several prizes, among them the Golden Bear award at the Berlin Film Festival and the "Best Film" and the "Audience Award" at the 2004 European Film Awards.

In 2005 he directed a documentary about the Istanbul music scene, named "Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul", which includes musicians from Ceza to Sezen Aksu, Aynur Doğan and Brenna MacCrimmon. It is narrated by a member of a German experimental band Einstürzende Neubauten, Alexander Hacke, who also produced music for Head-On.

Themes
In Akın's cinema, the lives of German Turks are a recurring theme, such as their struggles and their confusion about two different cultures. In Head-On, two different cultures are presented, the conservative Muslim and Turkish view of Sibel's family, and Sibel's open ideas about sex. Cahit is presented to be somewhat a mixture of these two ideas and cultures, representing a struggling Turk. Akın, on the other hand, has never denied his Turkish roots and even accepted the Cannes award in the name of Turkish cinema.

Political stance
Akın has been criticized for actions that have been interpreted by some as trivializing the Holocaust and was investigated by German police for wearing a t-shirt with a Nazi swastika in place of the letter "S" in the word "BUSH". Akın defended the t-Shirt as "more than mere provocation" and emphasized:

"Bush's policy is comparable with that of the Third Reich. I think that under Bush, Hollywood has been making certain films at the request of The Pentagon to normalise things like torture and Guantanamo. I'm convinced the Bush administration wants a third world war. I think they're fascists."

- Krisztina Goda

Awards

 * 1998 Bavarian Film Awards, Best New Director
 * 2004 Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival
 * 2004 European Film Awards, Best Film, Audience Award
 * 2007 Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival Golden Orange Award, Best Director
 * 2007 Bavarian Film Awards, Best Director
 * 2007 LUX Prize for European Cinema awarded by European Parliament
 * 2007 Cannes Film Festival, Best Screenplay