In his autobiography, famed director Elia Kazan writes about the difficulties in making his most personal film, America, America, the story of his Greek uncle’s sojourn in Turkey and eventual immigration to the US. Part of Kazan’s inspiration was the discovery and belief in the idea that, in storytelling, those ideas that are most personal to the artist are the most universal for audiences.

Head On writer-director Fatih Akin’s latest film, The Edge of Heaven, is a powerfully dramatic work of fiction that is, on the surface, about contemporary relations between Germany and Turkey. Akin, a German national of Turkish descent, explores the prevailing attitudes and prejudices of both sides, on various topics such as family, sex, religion, and terrorism.

Of course, these are subjects that citizens of every nation can relate to, and Akin weaves them in a spellbinding and unpredictable narrative that packs an emotional wallop and is best left un-summarized. If that’s enough for you, then stop reading here, but if you must know more, the story begins when a Turkish widower living in Bremen asks a middle-aged Turkish prostitute to be his live-in lover. Soon we are introduced to four other major characters: the widower’s son, the prostitute’s daughter, as well as a young German woman and her mother (played by the great actress Hanna Schygulla). As in many of Robert Altman’s key works, each of these intersecting individuals has a relationship with the others, whether they know it or not.

Akin’s un-insistent, yet graceful direction successfully hits home on a number of political and emotional levels. He also employs some clever tricks that, in the hands of a flashier, shallow filmmaker, would ring hollow, but Akin’s deeply felt connections to his material assure us that his devices are used only to bring out an equally moving response in his viewers. The Edge of Heaven will screen Saturday, September 6 at 5 p.m. & 8 p.m.