NURI BILGE CEYLAN

Nuri Bilge Ceylan is a Turkish photographer, screenwriter, actor, and film director who has been a part of the international media since 1995. In 2014, he received the Palme d'Or, which is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival. He is married to photographer, filmmaker and actress Ebru Ceylan. Nuri graduated from university with a degree of Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering. Born in Istanbul, Turkey on 26 January 1959, he found his interest in photography materializing from the age of 15. He joined the army in Ankara, Turkey, where he discovered that cinema would give shape to his life.

Ceylan's films deal with the estrangement of the individual, existentialism, and the details and monotony of everyday human life. He relies mostly on static shots and long takes usually in natural settings, as well as play with sound, implementing “menacing silences”. He is known for filming his protagonist from behind, thus obscuring their faces and leaving the audience to speculate on the characters' brooding emotions. Ceylan makes films on very low budgets, with his casts generally consisting of amateur actors, most of them being his family members, including his parents.

Nuri's first short film Koza (Cocoon) screened at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival was nominated for Palme d'Or for Best Short Film. His 1997 debut feature film Kasaba (“Small Town”) got him the Caligari Film Award at the 1998 Berlin International Film Festival, the FIPRESCI prize, the Special Prize of the Jury at the 1998 Istanbul International Film Festival, and the Silver Award at the 1998 Tokyo International Film Festival. His second feature Clouds of May won a Golden Orange for Best Director at the Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival, and FIPRESCI Award at the 2000 European Film Awards.

Uzak ("Distant"), released in 2002, received the Grand Jury Prize and Best Actor Prize at Cannes and also won Best Director, Best Film, Best Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actor at the 2002 Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival, a Silver Hugo/Special Jury Prize at the 2003 Chicago International Film Festival, Best Turkish Director, Best Turkish Film, the FIPRESCI Prize at the 2003 Istanbul International Film Festival, and the FIPRESCI Film of the Year at the 2003 San Sebastian International Film Festival. In İklimler ("Climates"), which received international praise from film critics and won the FIPRESCI Movie Critics' Award in 2006 at Cannes, Ceylan co-starred with his spouse, and also returned to photography (alongside cinema). "Turkey Cinemascope" is a book of Panoramic Photographs of Turkey by Ceylan between 2003 and 2009.

Ceylan won the best director award in the 2008 Cannes Film Festival for Üç Maymun ("Three Monkeys"). His sixth film Once Upon a Time in Anatolia won the Grand Jury Prize on its premier in 2011 at Cannes, and was selected as Turkey's official submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. In 2014, Ceylan became the second Turkish director to receive a Palme d'Or for Winter Sleep, after Yılmaz Güney and Şerif Gören (who won the award in 1982 for their film Yol).

Filmography:
1995: Cocoon
1998: Small Town
2000: Clouds of May
2002: Distant
2006: Climates
2008: Three Monkeys
2011: Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
2014: Winter Sleep