“Rheingold” by star director Fatih Akin celebrates its premiere in Cologne
Movie about the rapper Xatar
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“Rheingold” by star director Fatih Akin celebrates its premiere in Cologne
To update Cologne The new film by Golden Globe winner Fatih Akin celebrated its grand premiere at Cologne’s Cinedom on Monday evening: “Rheingold” tells the story of the Bonn rapper Xatar.
On Monday evening, as part of the Cologne Film Festival, the new feature film “Rheingold” by star director Fatih Akin celebrated its big premiere in Cologne’s Cinedom. “Rheingold” tells the life of the Bonn rapper Xatar, who also runs a Köfte snack bar on the market in the federal city. Hundreds of fans of the gangster rapper besieged the Mediapark to get a glimpse of the musician and the many celebrities who came to the cathedral city to be the first to see the film.
Xatar has ambushed a gold transport in Ludwigsburg
Born in Iran in 1981, Giwar Hajabi, as Xatar’s real name is, fled Iran with his parents in the early 1980s. He was imprisoned several times during his life. Among other things from 2011 to 2014 in the prison in Rheinbach. At first he was a petty criminal before he became a big dealer. On December 15, 2009, the rapper of Kurdish descent and three accomplices attacked a gold truck in Ludwigsburg. He and six other men were convicted. Hajabi has served his sentence. According to media reports, gold worth around 1.7 million euros was stolen at that time – there is still no trace of the stolen goods. 2014 was eliminated prematurely. He later recorded an album in prison. Fatih Akin took his autobiography “Everything or Nothing: We say the world is yours” as the basis for his film adaptation. Critics accuse Akin of being stylized as a hero with the film Xatar.
Many scenes were filmed in Bonn
Golden Globe winner Akin and the cast led by Emilio Sakraya also came to Bonn for the filming. Two shots were taken in a villa on Nibelungenstrasse in Mehlem. The opera also served as a backdrop several times. In Mehlem, recordings were also made with a drone, repeatedly flying over the Rhine and the villa. The shoot was “extremely dependent on the weather” at the time. “In our case, the dependency on the weather is not due to a drone flight, but solely to the content of the film. Without being able to reveal too much, one of the key scenes calls for very sunny weather,” Akin’s production company Bombero International told the GA at the time when asked.
Xatar recalls the situation in Iran
Before the film was shown in cinema 4 of the Cinedom, Xatar was aimed at the premiere audience. He hopes that the film will be well received, but that the look at Iran will not be forgotten. “I’m wearing Kurdish clothes today – all hell is breaking loose in my city,” says the rapper. There have been protests against the mullahs’ regime in the country for weeks.
But not only the Iran war topic of his small speech, but also the whereabouts of the gold. “Please be very careful when looking – there are Easter Eggs that will lead you to the gold,” says Hajabi.
Mayor of Cologne and Xatar’s mother on stage
Before the premiere, Cologne’s Mayor Ralph Elster was “very proud” that Cologne as a media location was “presented so well”. “The fact that some of the film’s scenes were shot here in Cologne is fantastic,” says Elster. He also recalled that Xatar lives in the cathedral city and runs a “fantastic production center” there. He was alluding to “Goldmann Entertainment GmbH”. He also recalled the situation in Iran, you had to “send out signals”. After the film, Xatar brought his sister, his mother and also his wife onto the stage. Hajabi’s mother said that she too was arrested in Iran because of the dress code. As early as 2005 she wrote a book about her experiences in Iran – but a publisher rejected it because it was too “political”.
Celebrities celebrate premiere screenings
Not only fans came to the premiere in Cologne, but also many celebrities from the film and music industry. Alongside Fatih Akin, Emilio Sakraya and Giwar Hajabi, Ilyes Raoul, Sakraya’s younger brother, also posed for photographers on the red carpet. The rappers Sister Ewa, Samy and Ssio were also there.
“Rheingold” hits theaters on Thursday, October 27, 2022.