Im Juli

Im Juli.
German DVD cover
Directed by	Fatih Akın
Starring	Moritz Bleibtreu, Christiane Paul
Distributed by	Koch-Lorber Films
Release date(s)	2000
Country	Germany-Turkey
Language	German

Im Juli. (English: In July) is a 2000 German-Turkish Film.

Plot

At the beginning of his summer holiday, a somewhat naïve trainee teacher Daniel (Moritz Bleibtreu) buys a ring from a stall run by Juli (Christiane Paul). The ring bears a Mayan sun symbol, which, according to Juli, has the power to lead him to the woman of his dreams, whom he will recognise by a similar sun symbol. As Juli has the ring's counterpart, and as she is in love with him, she invites Daniel to a party that evening, hoping that they will meet.

Curious, Daniel goes to the party and meets Melek (İdil Üner), who is wearing a T-shirt imprinted with a sun symbol. Convinced that she is the woman of his dreams, Daniel talks to her. Melek is only passing through and looking for a place to spend the night. After spending the evening together seeing the sights of Hamburg, Daniel invites her to spend the night in his apartment.

Daniel and Melek leave the party just as Juli arrived. She sees them leave together. In her disappointment, she decides to leave town. Next day she goes to the Autobahn to hitch a ride, with no predetermined destination.

As fate would have it, Daniel is the first car to stop, on his way back from the airport, where he has just dropped Melek off. He has decided to drive to Istanbul in search of Melek, who, he knows, will be under the bridge over the Bosporus a few days later. Daniel takes Juli with him in his neighbour's rusty old car. And this is the beginning a long and exciting trip across Eastern Europe.

Cast

• Moritz Bleibtreu as Daniel Bannier
• Christiane Paul as Juli
• İdil Üner as Melek
• Mehmet Kurtuluş as İsa
• Jochen Nickel as Leo
• Branka Katić as Luna
• Birol Ünel as Club Doyen
• Sandra Borgmann as Marion
• Ernest Hausmann as Kodjo, Daniel's neighbour
• Gábor Salinger as Jewellery vendor in Hungarian market
• Cem Akın as Turkish border guard
• Fatih Akın as Romanian border guard
• Sándor Badár as Alin

Trivia

• The sequence of the film when Daniel and Juli travel through Romania is made up of a series of still photos, since the production team was not able to obtain the required authorization to film in Romania.
• The director has a cameo as a Romanian border guard on a checkpoint of the Hungarian-Romanian border.
• The director's brother Cem Akin plays the role of a Bulgarian border guard on a checkpoint of the Bulgarian-Turkish border.

Accolades

• Deutscher Filmpreis 2001: Moritz Bleibtreu (Best actor)
• Tromsø International Film Festival: People's choice award: Fatih Akin (Best direction)

External links

• Im Juli at the Internet Movie Database