At GreenCine Daily, Dave Hudson brings word that the German Film Awards, also known as the Lolas, just awarded three of the top prizes to Turkish-German filmmaker Fatih Akin's The Edge of Heaven. Akin has been recognized over the last decade for his explorations of the tensions between culture and religion, particularly as they pertain to German Turks. Edge of Heaven is no exception. A gorgeous survey of several interlocking tragedies, its deft structure puts Paul Haggis' Crash to shame. A German scholar struggles with his senile father's decision to bring a prostitute into their home. It gets complicated once the young man takes a liking to her. When sudden tragedy strikes, he sets out to find her next of kin for his own sense of closure. Smart without being too brooding, Edge of Heaven has a memorably epic scope. It's no wonder the Deutsche Filmakamie awarded Akin with Best Director and Screenplay awards, while Andrew Bird took home the Best Editing statue for his role in stitching the thing together.

Akin isn't the most accessible foreign filmmaker, but his movies speak to international concerns that are rarely explored in American cinema, which gives his work a unique feeling of immediately. Akin has five other features worth your attention, but don't miss this one: Edge of Heaven opens in New York on May 21, followed by a national roll-out.

Mark reported last week on Valley of the Wolves: Iraq, the anti-American, anti-Jewish movie about the war in Iraq that was rampaging through the Turkish box office. It's slowly being released around Europe now, and responses have been complex to say the least. In Germany, which has a substantial Turkish population, the film sold 200,000 tickets and finish its opening week as the fifth most-seen film in the country, despite demands from Jewish groups and conservative politicians that it be pulled from theaters.

Now, though, after almost two weeks of showing the film, Cinemaxx - the biggest theater chain the country - has decided to remove Valley from its screens. Though some liberal politicians in Germany are unsettled by the decision, the country's large Turkish population makes the issue a complicated one. According to reports, "The film comes at a time when the integration of Turks into German society is lagging due to high levels of crime, unemployment and failures in education — and critics say that the movie offers little to improve the dialogue." Additionally, fears about possible racial conflicts are high in the wake of the recent riots in France, and many people who normally support free speech are not sure it's worth the risk in this case.

Despite the move by Cinemaxx, however, Valley remains on screens in Germany. It cannot be officially banned unless it's found to violate laws against hate speech or the glorification of intense violence, neither of which seems likely at this point.