GreenCine Staff Pick: German filmmaker Fatih Akin, whose most recent film, Head-On (Gegen die Wand), was arguably one of the more brilliant films of the past year, previously made a more whimsically enjoyable little film called In July. This treat makes for perfectly appropriate summertime viewing, but the title also refers to the free-spirited character played by Christiane Paul, who has a secret crush on a Hamburg student teacher (Moritz Bleibtreu, whom you might remember from an obscure little film called Run Lola Run). The road trip movie - which takes us from Hamburg to Istanbul - is enhanced by Akin's playfully non-chronological narrative, beginning mid-narrative and then moving backwards. While for some films, this sort of contrivance only serves to mask other deficiencies, for In July it merely adds to the pleasure, keeping us off-balance but engaged. Both Paul and Bleibtreu are winning presences, who also play their characters as believably imperfect, and it's a further pleasure to glimpse such cinematically underrepresented locales as Hungary and Turkey. You will forgive some coincidences and what may seem on paper a derivative plot, as In July still ends up feeling original and, ultimately, surprisingly deep. -- Tamara Lees