The best known film director in Turkish cinema: Who is Nuri Bilge Ceylan?

Who is Nuri Bilge Ceylan, one of the Golden Palm Award-winning directors of Turkish cinema?

Born on January 26, 1959, in Bakırköy, Istanbul, Nuri Bilge Ceylan's childhood passed in Yenice, Çanakkale, his father's hometown. Nuri Bilge moved to Yenice with his family when he was two years old, after his father, an agricultural engineer working at the Agricultural Research Institute in Istanbul Yeşilköy, wanted his father to be appointed to his hometown Çanakkale for idealistic purposes.

For Nuri Bilge and his older sister Emine, this means a free childhood in the Yenice countryside. But this freedom only lasts until his sister finishes secondary school. Since there was no high school in Yenice at that time, they had to return to Istanbul in 1969. Nuri Bilge Ceylan goes to primary school, middle school, and high school in Bakırköy in public schools. But he usually prefers to spend some of his summer holidays in Yenice.

After high school, he entered the Department of Chemical Engineering at Istanbul Technical University in 1976. But it's been an eventful year. Classes are constantly interrupted by boycotts, conflicts, and political polarization. He goes to the Maçka campus for two years, where the events are most intense in those days. But events hardly allow for lessons.

He took the exam again in 1978 and transferred to the Electrical Engineering Department of Boğaziçi University, where the events were relatively less common in those years.

The interest in photography, which sprouted in high school years, increases here with the contribution of the photography club. The university's rich library and music archive play an important role in nurturing his passion for the visual arts and classical music. The elective cinema lessons he took from Üstün Barışta and the special screenings made by the cinema club helped reinforce the love of cinema that had sprouted at the Cinematheque screenings in Taksim. These are the years when there is no DVD or video yet and movies have to be watched in the cinema.

He takes a passport photo at the club to save his school money during his years in the Bosphorus. Apart from the photography club, he also operates mountaineering and chess clubs.

Nuri Bilge, who graduated from the school in 1985, said, 'What should I do?' He searches for the answer to his question first in London and then in Kathmandu. Returning to Turkey after months of traveling to the west and east, Ceylan decides to do his military service and puts an end to the troubles caused by indecision. And during his one-and-a-half-year military service in Ankara Mamak, he discovers how he will shape the rest of his life. Cinema...

After his military service, he set to work to implement this decision: While taking promotional photos to earn a living, he continued his studies at Mimar Sinan University Cinema Department. But this oldest student of the school, now in his thirties, is in a hurry to start life, leaving school after two years.

He first acts in a short film by his friend Mehmet Eryılmaz and reinforces his knowledge by participating in the technical process from start to finish. Then he buys the Arriflex 2D camera, on which that film was shot, in order to shoot his own short film. In those years, video cameras were not an option yet.

At the end of 1993, he started shooting the short film Koza, some of which he brought from Russia in his own suitcase and some of which had already passed the expiration date given by TRT. The film was screened in Cannes in May 1995 and became the first Turkish short film to be selected to compete at the Cannes Film Festival.

Then came three feature films, which can be considered sequels of Koza, and which are described as a "country trilogy" by some: Town (1997), May Trouble (1999), and Far (2002). In these films, Ceylan uses his close friends, relatives, and family as actors and undertakes almost everything himself. Cinematography, sound design, production, editing, script, and directing.

The last film of the trilogy, 'Far,' won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival and instantly made Ceylan an internationally recognized name. Continuing its journey after Cannes, Distant won a total of 47 awards, 23 of which were international, making it the film with the highest number of awards in Turkish cinema.

Then comes the movie 'Climates', for which it will again win the FIPRESCI award at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. He shares the lead role with his wife Ebru Ceylan in the movie.

His 2008 film 'Three Monkeys' competes at the 61st Cannes Film Festival and is awarded the Best Director Award. 'Three Monkeys' later became the first Turkish film to make it to the top nine in the Oscar race.

Nuri Bilge Ceylan returns to Cannes in 2009. This time, however, he is a member of the jury in the main competition.

His 2011 film "Once Upon a Time in Anatolia" once again won the Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

His latest film "Winter Sleep", which was screened again in Cannes in 2014, was awarded the Palme d'Or, the grand prize of the festival.

In late 2003, while searching for the location of the movie 'İklimler', he returned to the art of photography, which he had not touched since his military years. He begins to conduct it as well as cinema.