Director Biography

 Nuri Bilge Ceylan, internationally celebrated Turkish film director and photographer, was born in 1959 in Istanbul. After graduating from Electrical and Electronics Engineering at Bosphorus University, he went to London and Kathmandu to decide what he should do in life. When he was in the army, he found out how to give shape to the rest of his life ‘cinema’. Furthermore, Ceylan studied Film making at Mimar Sinan University, but at 30-something, he was the university's oldest student and in a hurry to make a career for himself. After two years he abandoned the course.

Ceylan began by acting in a short film directed by his friend Mehmet Eryılmaz, but at the same time participating in the entire technical process from beginning to end, thus building on the knowledge he already had. Towards the end of 1993, he began shooting the short film Cocoon (Koza). The film was screened at the Cannes Film Festival in 1995 and became the first Turkish short to be selected for competition at the Cannes Film Festival.

Three full-length feature films followed that could be cast in terms of a sequel to Cocoon; they have also been described by some as his ‘provincial trilogy’: The Small Town (Kasaba, 1997), Clouds of May (Mayis Sikintisi, 1999) and Distant (Uzak, 2002). In all of these films, Ceylan enlisted his close friends, relatives and family as actors and took on just about every technical role himself: the cinematography, sound design, production, editing, writing and direction…

When Distant, the final film of the trilogy, won the Grand Prix at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival, Ceylan suddenly became an internationally recognized name. Continuing on the festival circuit after Cannes, Distant scooped a total of 47 awards, 23 of them international, and so became the most award-winning film in the history of Turkish cinema.

His film Climates (Iklimler) won the FIPRESCI Award at Cannes in 2006 and received international prize by critics and experts. Ceylan won the Award for the Best Director at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival for his film Three Monkeys (Uç Maymun). Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Bir Zamanlar Anadolu'da) received the Grand Prix at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.

He is married to the filmmaker, photographer, and actress Ebru Ceylan, his co-star in Climates

Filmography: 

2011    Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
2008    Three Monkeys
2006    Climates
2002    Distant
1999    Clouds of May
1997    The Small Town
1993    Cocoon