Tolga Karacelik

Turkish writer-director Tolga Karaçelik made an international splash with his acclaimed intimate drama "Gise Memuru" ("Toll Booth," 2010) and its politically charged follow-up "Samarsik" ("Ivy," 2014). Born in Istanbul in 1981, Karaçelik studied law at Marmara University before moving to New York to pursue an education at the New York Film Academy. He directed a series of shorts, including the popular video for "Celik Comak," a 2006 single by the Turkish progressive rock band Gevende. His 2009 short, "Rapunzel," which paid tribute to silent film comedy through a modern telling of the eponymous fairytale, was selected by the Turkish Ministry of Culture to represent his country's cinema output at the Berlin International Film Festival and Cannes Film Festival in 2010. That same year, he made his debut as a feature film director with "Toll Booth" (2010). The drama, about an introverted toll booth worker whose routine existence is turned upside down by the arrival of a supervisor, won three major awards, including Best First Film, at the 47th Antalya "Golden Orange" International Film Festival, and established Karaçelik as a major new voice in Turkish cinema. The following year, he contributed to the anthology film "60 Seconds of Solitude in Year Zero" (2011), a compilation of one-minute short films helmed by 60 international directors, including Park Chan-wook, Ken Jacobs and Tom Twyker. After making brief forays into acting in the Turkish comedy "Kurtulus Son Durak" (2012) and directing for television, Karaçelik made his second feature, "Ivy" (2014), about the crew of a Turkish freighter that are forced to remain aboard the ship when its owner becomes insolvent. The film was selected to premiere as part of the World Dramatic Competition at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.