Nuri Bilge Ceylan

Born in the Barkiröy district of Istanbul, Turkey, Nuri Bilge Ceylan was raised by his father, M. Emin Ceylan, an agricultural engineer, and his mother, Fatma, in the North Aegan seaside town of Yenice. The area lacked a high school, which sent Ceylan and his family back to Istanbul to complete his secondary education. After graduating in 1976, Ceylan studied chemical engineering at Istanbul Technical University, but the political unrest of the period prompted him to leave the school and enroll in the electrical engineering department at Bogazici University in 1978. The university also had active photography and cinema clubs, both of which quickly captured his interest. Upon graduation in 1985, Ceylan joined the army in order to complete his compulsory military service. During his 18-month stint, he decided that he would give up engineering to pursue a career in film, and began studying cinema at Mimar Sinan University. But after two years, he left the school to develop practical experience in filmmaking, which commenced with the purchase of his first Arriflex camera. By 1993, Ceylan was shooting his first film, the short "Koza" ("Coccoon"), a drama about an eldery couple which he completed with a combination of negative film from Russian and long-expired stock film. "Koza" made its way to Cannes in 1995 and became the first Turkish short film to not only compete at the festival but also the first to receive a Palme d'Or nomination for Best Short Film. Two years later, he began the first entry in what was dubbed the "provincial trilogy," which focused on the complicated lives of residents in a small Turkish town. "Kasaba" ("Small Town") captured the Caligari Film Award at the 1998 Berlin International Film Festival, while its follow-up, "Clouds of May" (1999) took the FIPRESCI Award at the 2000 European Film Awards. The final film in the trilogy, "Uzak" ("Distant," 2002), was perhaps the most successful of the three features, reaping the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes and his first critical association prizes from America. Ultimately, "Uzak" claimed 47 awards, making it the most-honored Turkish film in the country's history. For his fourth film, "Iklimler" ("Climates," 2006), Ceylan not only directed but also starred in the picture with his wife, Ebru Ceylan, and again swept many major international festivals, including the FIPRESCI Award at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. His next project, "Uc Maymun" ("Three Monkeys," 2008), became the first Turkish film to reach the short list for the Best Foreign Film Oscar, while its follow-up, the drama "Once Upon a Time in Anatolia" (2011), earned him another Grand Prix at Cannes for its detailed look at the impact of a murder upon residents and police officials in a small town. Three years later, Ceylan reached a high water mark in his career by becoming only the second Turkish director in history to claim the Palme d'Or at Cannes for "Winter Sleep" (2014), a drama about class struggles in Turkey.