Mustafa Altioklar
- Writer
- Director
- Actor
Born in 1958. His childhood house overlooked a projection room, owned
by the Board of Censors, where the members of the board were cutting
the films. As the cutter threw away film pieces out of the window,
Altioklar and his friends were eagerly waiting for them outside the
window of the projection room. That was his first meeting with the art
of light and images. In 1977, he started his medical education in
Faculty of Medicine of Hacettepe University and became a qualified
specialist of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation in 1991. Mustafa
Altioklar began his film career by shooting short films in 1989. After
shooting five short films one after another in three years and winning
many awards consecutively, he began shooting his feature films. By
winning the award of "The Best New Coming Director" with his first
feature film, Balcony, at Ankara Film Festival in 1992, Altioklar drew
the attention of Turkish film industry to his work. With his second
feature film, Istanbul Under My Wings (1995), he also brought an
unexpected vivacity to the Turkish Cinema whose film production had
decreased dramatically and whose number of viewers had neared to
nothing during the past 20 years. After this contribution, which is now
called the rebirth of Turkish Cinema's reconciliation with its
audience; Altioklar carried on his road and proved the permanence of
his success by shooting Kolera Street (1997). Altioklar's usage of
locations as actors in his films has become a characteristic of his
work. This trade mark became especially distinctive in his fourth
feature The Elevator (1999), and his fifth, The Bathroom (2005). While
his direction of an ensemble cast and parallel fiction was recognized
as astonishing in He is in the Army now (2002), his last film Shattered
Soul (2005) has taken its well-earned place in Turkish Cinema History
as being the first psychological thriller ever, and was awarded with a
"Bronze Gryphone" at 2006 in International St. Petersburg Film
Festival. Altioklar has written all the scripts of his short and
feature films.
