İsmet Elçi

İsmet Elçi — Biography

Migration, exile and the political conflicts within Turkey's borders run through the novels, scripts and films of İsmet Elçi, a Kurdish-born writer and director working in Germany. He has also worked as an actor on stage and screen and has published several books. A prominent work is the novel Sinan ohne Land (Sinan without a Land), which was made into a ZDF television mini-series in 1989.

He was born in the Altınova area of Muş. In the late 1970s the violent political climate in eastern Anatolia cost his father his livelihood, and at 16 he went with him to Berlin. While working in a factory he learned German at night school and began to write. The films of Yılmaz Güney, above all Sürü (1979), made a strong impression on him and played a part in his turn to writing.

His film work goes back to the mid-1980s: he acted in Kobay (1986) and Hayallerim, Aşkım ve Sen (1987), and took on the script, direction, production and a part in Kısmet Kısmet (1987). He then wrote and directed Düğün (1990), Cemile ve Umudun Masalı (1995) and Cemile (1996). In 1993 he received the Adelbert von Chamisso Award in its sponsorship category.