News

Fatih Akin’s latest film, Rhinegold, tells the fascinating true story of German rapper Xatar, born Giwar Hajabi. Hailing from Iranian Kurdistan, Hajabi endured immense hardships from a young age after his family was forced to flee political turmoil. As a refugee, Hajabi bounced between Iraq, France, and Germany, struggling to find stability in his youth. Facing discrimination and financial troubles, he drifted towards crime, dealing drugs, and getting embroiled in Amsterdam’s criminal underworld.

Just when it seems his future is sealed, Hajabi discovers a passion for music. Enrolling in a prestigious conservatory, he nurtures his musical talents yet stays tangled with gangsters. A botched gold heist lands Hajabi in a Syrian prison, where unspeakable torture awaits. Remarkably, this is where Hajabi’s career truly begins, as he starts recording rap songs, honing his lyrical skills. Upon release, Hajabi emerges, reborn as Xatar, rapidly rising to fame throughout Germany.

"Life writes its own story." Strand Releasing has debuted their own official US trailer for the German film titled Rhinegold (originally written as Rheingold in German for their release), from the Turkish-German director Fatih Akin. This already opened in Germany back in 2022 - we posted the trailer back then as well. It didn't have much of an impact, and I doubt anyone in the US will be watching this movie either. Fatih Akin's Rhinegold captures the life of German hip-hop rapper, entrepreneur, and ex-convict Giwar Hajabi - best known by his stage name "X A T A R" or Xatar. Born to Kurdish parents in Iran, he was imprisoned in Iraq for being Kurdish. From the hell of that Iraqi prison, Giwar Hajabi came to Germany as a young boy with his family in the mid-1980s and fought through even more challenges to make a name for himself in music.

To no one’s surprise, Edward Berger’s epic WWI drama All Quiet on the Western Front is the front runner for this year’s German film awards. The Netflix feature, which picked up nine Oscar nominations and won four — both records for a German movie — received 12 nominations on Friday for Germany’s top cinema honor, known as the Lola.

The film, the first German-language adaptation of the Erich Maria Remarque classic 1929 anti-war novel, is the clear favorite going into this year’s Lolas. In addition to the Oscar sweep — the film won best international feature, best cinematography, best production design, and best score at this year’s Academy Awards — All Quiet on the Western Front dominated the 2023 Baftas, taking seven trophies, including for best film and best director.

All Quiet was nominated in every Lola category it qualified for, including best film, best director for Berger, and best actor...

German-Turkish director Fatih Akin is attending the Red Sea Film Festival for the screening of “Rhinegold,” about young Iranian-Kurdish immigrant Giwar Hajabi, also known as Xatar, who is one of Germany’s most successful rap stars.

The pic was released in Germany on Oct. 27 and has grossed over 10 million, becoming Akin’s biggest hit to date.

As in many of Akin’s previous features, “Rhinegold” explores the energy released by the encounter between Middle Eastern and European culture.

The pic begins with Xatar’s musician parents escaping from Tehran during the 1979 Iranian revolution and includes scenes in Iraq, prior to the family’s departure to Europe and Xatar’s subsequent imprisonment in 2010 in a Syrian jail. Although much of the film takes place in the streets of Europe, the Middle East is a core element of its visceral energy.

Akin is fascinated by such cultural clashes and has said that...

“Rhinegold,” a biopic about young Iranian-Kurdish immigrant Giwar Hajabi, also known as Xatar, who rose from being a violent drug dealer and ex-convict to one of Germany’s most successful rap stars and music producers, has become the biggest box office hit ever for director Fatih Akin.

The film, which screens at the Thessaloniki Film Festival, chronicles Hajabi’s eventful life, beginning with the panicked escape of his musician parents from Tehran during the 1979 revolution. Fleeing to the country’s Kurdistan Province, they join the Kurdish rebellion. It is there, during a violent assault by the Iranian military, that Hajabi’s mother, hiding in a bat-filled cave, gives birth to her son.

Hoping for a better life in Europe, his parents travel west to Iraq, where, suspected of being spies, they are imprisoned. Released months later, they find asylum first in Paris, then in Bonn.

Akin was familiar with Hajabi’s music and story,...

East and west clash in Rheingold, the latest feature from Fatih Akin, which takes him back to the streets of urban Germany after 2019’s controversial serial-killer drama The Golden Glove. This too, though, is a biopic of sorts, with a similarly notorious subject matter: Kurdish rapper, record label boss and sometime jailbird Giwar Hajabi, Aka Xatar.

Born in a bat-infested cave under heavy bombing during the Iran-Iraq war, Hajabi — still only 40 — has had an interesting life, to put it mildly. One suspects this often warts-and-all portrait is simply the tip of a very dark iceberg (the eye-popping extent of Hajabi’s drug-dealing career is only glimpsed in a brief montage), but a charismatic, even vulnerable performance by star Emilio Sakraya is enough to keep us onside.

The start is bold, with a would-be epic set-up that it can’t quite deliver on: Hajabi and his three accomplices are delivered to a prison in Syria,...

"How do we record an album in jail?" The Match Factory has revealed an official trailer for Rheingold, a new film from acclaimed Turkish-German director Fatih Akin. He last made the exceptionally disgusting film The Golden Glove which almost ended his career. Next up is this one - premiering at the Hamburg Film Festival before it opens in Germany in October. Fatih Akin's Rheingold captures the life of German hip-hop rapper, entrepreneur, and ex-convict Giwar Hajabi - best known by his stage name "X A T A R" or Xatar. Born to Kurdish parents in Iran, he was imprisoned in Iraq for being Kurdish. From the hell of that Iraqi prison, Giwar Hajabi came to Germany as a young boy with his family in the mid-1980s and fought through even more challenges to make a name for himself. Emilio Sakraya stars as Giwar, with a cast including Mona Pirzad,...

Edgar Wright already has two films arriving this year from Focus Features, Last Night in Soho and The Sparks Brothers, and now he’s eying a new project. Deadline reports he’s been set by Paramount to direct a new adaptation of Stephen King’s The Running Man. Written by Michael Bacall, who developed the story with Wright, the film will hew closer to King’s novel than the 1987 film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. The original novel set was set in a dystopian United States in 2025 as a competitive game show featuring deathly consequences gets underway.

Next up, bouncing back from his serial killer drama The Golden Glove, German director Fatih Akin has unveiled his latest project. He’ll be helming Rheingold, which will capture the life of German hip-hop rapper, entrepreneur, and ex-convict Xatar aka Giwar Hajabi, Cineuropa reports. Adapted from the 2015 biography Alles oder Nix, the film is also...

Rheingold by Fatih Akin and 1000 Zeilen by Michael Bully Herbig are to receive funding from the Ffhsh high-end committee. The committee of the German Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein in charge of allocating production funding to high-end film projects has decided to grant around €2 million to ten upcoming productions. To be eligible, the films and series must have production costs that exceed €3.5 million. German director Fatih Akin (The Golden Glove) is adapting the biography of German hip-hop rapper, entrepreneur and ex-convict Xatar, Alles oder Nix (2015), in his new film, Rheingold. Bombero International in Hamburg will be in charge of the production of the gangster drama and can now count on the support of the Filmförderung to the tune of €700,000. Xatar, aka Giwar Hajabi, is an important figure on the German hip-hop scene, and his life represents an immigrant success story. The film will be shot in Hamburg...