21/09/2026 - Fatih Akin’s Hamburg-set bittersweet tragedy-fantasy wears its heart on its sleeve, turning a supernatural teen fairy-tale romance into something more

A genuine congratulations is in order for Fatih Akin, who has expeditiously found two of the most beautiful young actors in the German-speaking world and put them opposite each other as star-crossed lovers in his latest film. Ghost Song (simply titled Geister, or “Ghosts”, in German), which has opened San Sebastián and is competing for the Golden Shell, is more than just pretty people in black and white. However, they certainly contribute to a sort of fairy-tale gleam embedded within the Golden Bear-winning German filmmaker’s occasionally melodramatic yet refreshingly earnest effort, co-written with Ruth Toma.

Faris and Farasha meet at a secondary-school graduation party near the top of Hamburg’s Heinrich Hertz Tower and hit it off immediately, planning for a first date the next day. As the two, plus their respective best friends, pile into a car to go home, the group swerves to avoid a truck while driving through a bizarre set of roadworks (the worst way to go: death by confusing Baustelle), causing the vehicle to go careening off a bridge and into the water. Farasha is the only fatality amongst the four, and she begins to visit Faris in his dreams – for an allotted period of 40 days. The young man is enamoured by the promise of his beloved, and he begins to grow more restless to reunite with Farasha, who goads on his dark spiral.

Akin uses Hamburg’s urbanity to his advantage, finding architecturally adventurous places to shoot the couple during their romantic nighttime escapades. The topsy-turvy cinematography by Frank Griebe (best known for his collaborations with Tom Tykwer) sees all sorts of unexpected lens movement play out, with an emphasis on actively rotating the camera as if shifting us into a different realm. A haunting and immensely effective leitmotif by Malakoff Kowalski (who penned the original score) lingers as an earworm and appears omnipresently in all forms: phone ringtones, diegetic whistling, brooding strings, wispy winds instruments and low brass tones alike.

German actor Eren M Güvercin – with a blinding, irresistible grin – plays Faris, and Austrian-based, Syrian-born refugee Mariam Dawoud breathes life into Farah, aka Farasha, in her first screen role; the latter is able to turn some of the movie’s more overwritten moments into honest tenderness. Dreams and the supernatural trickle into reality – pieces of Faris’s nighttime reveries manifest themselves empirically and vice versa. The filmmaker inserts moments of levity through flourishes of play, reminding us, perhaps, that this is still a film about young adults in love.

Akin marks the passage of time through strange and beautiful collages by Nathalie David – accompanied by a mention of what day out of 40 it is – who coalesces different styles to imprint upon us the indelible. Although the story of Faris and Farasha may feel inconsequential in the sense of a romantic epic, the director raises the stakes through a diligent sincerity, taking their relationship as seriously as any other. He spiritually echoes Portrait of a Lady on Fire’s infamous line – “Don’t regret; remember” – in his pursuit of staying true to the spark captured that night in the TV tower. Critics may say that Ghost Song is schmaltzy, but it’s nice to see souls laid bare at a time when everything is always about performing something supposedly elevated.

Ghost Song is a German production by Bombero International GmbH & CO KG, co-produced by Warner Bros Film Productions Germany and Rialto Film GmbH. Beta Cinema holds the rights to its world sales.