Im Juli
Encyclopedia

Plot

At the beginning of his summer holiday, a somewhat naïve trainee teacher Daniel (Moritz Bleibtreu
Moritz Bleibtreu
Moritz Bleibtreu is a German actor.Bleibtreu was born in Munich, the son of actors Monica Bleibtreu and Hans Brenner, and the great-grand-nephew of the actress Hedwig Bleibtreu.Bleibtreu grew up in Hamburg...

) buys a ring from a stall run by Juli (Christiane Paul
Christiane Paul
Christiane Paul is a German film, television and stage actress.Paul first worked as a model for magazines such as Bravo. She was 17 when she obtained her first leading role in the film Deutschfieber...

). The ring bears a Mayan
Maya civilization
The Maya is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as for its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Pre-Classic period The Maya is a Mesoamerican...

 sun
Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...

 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
Idil Üner
İdil Üner is a German-Turkish actress.Üner studied at the Berlin University of the Arts. She received piano lessons for 17 years—starting from the age of 6—and formal opera training for two years. She joined the youth chapters of the Turkish-speaking theater Tiyatrom in Berlin of which her father...

), who is wearing a T-shirt
T-shirt
A T-shirt is a style of shirt. A T-shirt is buttonless and collarless, with short sleeves and frequently a round neck line....

 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
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

, 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
Destiny
Destiny or fate refers to a predetermined course of events. It may be conceived as a predetermined future, whether in general or of an individual...

 would have it, Daniel is the first car to stop, on his way back from the airport
Hamburg Airport
Hamburg Airport , also known as Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel Airport , is an international airport serving Hamburg, Germany.It originally covered . Since then, the site has grown more than tenfold to . The main apron covers . The airport is north of the centre of the city of Hamburg in the Fuhlsbüttel...

, where he has just dropped Melek off. He has decided to drive to Istanbul
Istanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...

 in search of Melek, who, he knows, will be under the bridge over the Bosporus
Bosporus
The Bosphorus or Bosporus , also known as the Istanbul Strait , is a strait that forms part of the boundary between Europe and Asia. It is one of the Turkish Straits, along with the Dardanelles...

 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
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...

.

Cast

  • Moritz Bleibtreu
    Moritz Bleibtreu
    Moritz Bleibtreu is a German actor.Bleibtreu was born in Munich, the son of actors Monica Bleibtreu and Hans Brenner, and the great-grand-nephew of the actress Hedwig Bleibtreu.Bleibtreu grew up in Hamburg...

     as Daniel Bannier
  • Christiane Paul
    Christiane Paul
    Christiane Paul is a German film, television and stage actress.Paul first worked as a model for magazines such as Bravo. She was 17 when she obtained her first leading role in the film Deutschfieber...

     as Juli
  • İdil Üner
    Idil Üner
    İdil Üner is a German-Turkish actress.Üner studied at the Berlin University of the Arts. She received piano lessons for 17 years—starting from the age of 6—and formal opera training for two years. She joined the youth chapters of the Turkish-speaking theater Tiyatrom in Berlin of which her father...

     as Melek
  • Mehmet Kurtuluş
    Mehmet Kurtulus
    Mehmet Kurtuluş is a German actor of Turkish descent. He is best known for his work with German director Fatih Akin.-Biography:...

     as İsa
  • Jochen Nickel as Leo
  • Branka Katić
    Branka Katic
    Branka Katić is a Serbian actress known for appearing in the movies Black Cat, White Cat and Public Enemies, and in the TV series Big Love.-Career:...

     as Luna
  • Birol Ünel
    Birol Ünel
    Birol Ünel is a German actor of Turkish descent. He has acted in a number of German and Turkish films, TV series and theatrical productions. His name, "Birol", means "unique" in Turkish....

     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
    Fatih Akin
    Fatih Akın is a German film director, screenwriter and producer of Turkish descent.- Personal life :Akın was born in 1973 in Hamburg to parents of Turkish ethnicity...

     as Romanian border guard
  • Sándor Badár as Alin

Trivia

  • The sequence of the film when Daniel and Juli travel through Romania
    Romania
    Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

     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
    Deutscher Filmpreis
    The Deutscher Filmpreis is the highest German movie award. From 1951 to 2004 it was awarded by a commission, since 2005 the award has been given by the Deutsche Filmakademie...

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