FILM: Amrum - New Films from Germany

$7, please purchase tickets: https://coolidge.org/films/amrum

In German with English Subtitles.

Amrum Island, Spring 1945. In the final days of the war, 12-year-old Nanning braves the treacherous sea to hunt seals, goes fishing at night, and works the nearby farm to help his mother feed the family. Despite the hardship, life on the beautiful, windswept island almost feels like paradise. But when peace finally comes, it reveals a deeper threat: the enemy is far closer than he imagined.

With Amrum, based on the childhood memories of his mentor Hark Bohm, Fatih Akin has created a modern answer to Roberto Rossellini's Germany Year Zero (Italian: Germania anno zero, 1948), which portrayed war-torn Berlin also through the eyes of a 12-year-old boy. 

The screenplay was co-written by the late German filmmaker Hark Bohm, who was originally supposed to direct the project based on his own childhood memories and on his novel of the same name, Amrum.

Directed by: Fatih AKIN

Fatih Akin is an acclaimed German filmmaker known for his powerful international work. He gained global recognition with Head-On (2004), which won the Golden Bear at the Berlinale. His follow-up, The Edge of Heaven (2007), earned the Best Screenplay award at Cannes, as well as European and German Film Awards. In 2017, In The Fade premiered in Cannes, and Diane Kruger won the Best Actress Award; the film later also was honored with a Golden Globe. Akin’s 2022 film Rheingold was a major box-office success in Germany. He returned to Cannes with Amrum (2025), which was met with rave reviews from the international press.

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Host or Publisher goethe-institut boston