Biografia

His photography feels found. His Mise-en-scène concerned with a discovered feeling of something rather than dialogue driven story.

Ambiguity

Often works with cinematographer Gokhan Tiryaki

Presence of snow

Minimal but stylistic sound editing

Accepted the Best Director award in 2008 Cannes Film Festival by saying, "I dedicate this award to my lonely and beautiful country, which I passionately love.".

Yasujiro Ozu is his favorite director.

His ten favorite films are Andrei Rublev (1966), Au Hasard Balthazar (1966), L'Avventura (1960), L'Eclisse (1962), Late Spring (1949), A Man Escaped (1956), The Mirror (1975), Persona (1966), Shame (1968), and Tokyo Story (1953).

Loves snow very much which is why he always uses it in his films.

Studied electrical and electronics engineering at the Bogazici (Bosphorus) University.

[on ambiguity] The literature always has an advantage over cinema. Because, you know, everybody knows that, that literature also uses the imagination of the reader. We can make the same thing to a certain amount by with ambiguity in cinema. So you can take the imagination of the audience into account and without using it and making the audience active you cannot go deep enough in cinema, I believe.

[on the girl with the lamplight in C'era una volta in Anatolia (2011)] This girl is a catalyst. We were searching for a reason why this suspect would confess. An innocent girl could be a reason for the change in his soul.

[On Chekhov] Actually in all my films I believe there is an element of Chekhov, because Chekhov wrote so many stories. He had stories about almost every situation, and I love them very much. So maybe he's influenced the way I look at life. Life follows Chekhov for me, in a way. After reading Chekhov, you begin to see the same kind of situations in life. And in the scriptwriting stage, I remember the stories somehow.

[On how he got into filmmaking] Actually, when I was a child, there was no art at all around me. I was living in a small town and the only art form around was maybe folk music, and maybe film. But there were no art exhibitions or anything like that. I sometimes wonder myself how I inclined to art. I think maybe it started when I was in high school, when I was living in Istanbul. I really don't know, but me, my sister and my cousin all somehow inclined towards art. I remember someone gave me a present of a book about photography. Maybe that started it. So you should be very careful when you buy presents for a small child. I think that book changed my life - it made photography seem a very enjoyable game. I made a darkroom and printed photographs, and with time I began to realize that it's an art. And it grew somehow.

[on C'era una volta in Anatolia (2011)] There are so many characters in life. Sometimes you cannot know them in certain situations. You have a girlfriend once. You are with her for three years. One day, you go on a trip with her. In three days, you get more information about her than you did in the previous three years. In my last film and in most of the films, there are situations where through those situations you know the characters better. I think in this film something like that is happening. Searching for the body, you can see many characteristics, many properties, of these people more easily. I am fond of situations like that. In Anatolia, I was so interested by showing the different sides of the human soul through life and death. You see the reflections of the characters on many things throughout the story.