Handan İpekçi

Handan İpekçi — Biography

Handan İpekçi is one of the best-known women directors in Turkish cinema, writing her own films and producing most of them herself. She is most closely associated with Büyük Adam Küçük Aşk (Big Man, Little Love, also known as Hejar): the controversial film won Best Film and Best Screenplay at the Antalya Golden Orange, the Silver Pyramid in Cairo, and was Turkey's submission for Best Foreign Language Film at the 74th Academy Awards.

Her family is from Trabzon. After studying radio, television and cinema at Gazi University's School of Press and Broadcasting, she started in the late 1980s as an assistant director on television and film sets, working on productions such as Sarı Tebessüm, Kanunun Ötesinde and İlk Aşk, and also appearing on screen in Ayaşlı ve Kiracıları and Can Şenliği. She moved into directing with the documentary Kemençenin Türküsü. Her first feature, Babam Askerde (1994), earned her the Promising New Director and Promising New Screenwriter awards at the Ankara International Film Festival. After Big Man, Little Love (2001) came Saklı Yüzler (Hidden Faces, 2007), which she also edited, and Çınar Ağacı (The Plane Tree, 2010), starring Nurgül Yeşilçay.

Beyond the awards, her films tend to pair social questions with personal drama.