Ayşe Polat

Ayşe Polat — Biography

Ayşe Polat is one of the key names of German-Turkish cinema and of the first wave of young filmmakers of Turkish descent at the end of the 1990s. The search for, and loss of, identity runs through her films, and her work is often linked to the Berlin School. She most recently returned to attention with In the Blind Spot (In the Blind Spot), which she wrote and directed and which won awards in 2023, among them at the Istanbul Film Festival and the Ankara festival.

Polat emigrated with her family to Hamburg as a child and first shot Super 8 films as a hobby at fifteen. She studied German language and literature at the University of Bremen while also pursuing philosophy and cultural studies in Berlin, and turned to short films tied to social projects. That first phase was marked by shorts such as Fremdnacht, Ein Fest für Beyhan and Gräfin Sophia Hatun. Her feature debut Tour Abroad competed at Karlovy Vary and Tokyo. Her second feature, En Garde (2004), opened the Locarno festival, took the Silver Leopard and the prize for best actress, and also won the German Critics Award. Luks Glück, The Heiress and her first documentary, Die Anderen (2016), followed; in 2006 she also directed her first theatre piece, Otobüs, at the HAU in Berlin.

Of Alevi-Kurdish descent, she sees herself as Turkish, Kurdish and German at once, and she has received the Bavarian Film Award for Best Director.