Muzaffer Özdemir

Muzaffer Özdemir — Biography

Muzaffer Özdemir is a Turkish actor and director from Gümüşhane. His year of birth is not settled: the English, German, Spanish and French Wikipedias and IMDb all give 1955, while Turkish-language references list 1957. He moved to Istanbul as a student and read geological engineering at Istanbul Technical University, though what had drawn him to the city was the hope of acting; he turned instead to documentary work for a while and took a small part in Yavuz Özkan's Yarış. In 1981 he went back to Ankara and spent time restoring historic buildings with his architect brother.

His reputation on screen rests almost entirely on his work with the director Nuri Bilge Ceylan. He was Deli Ahmet in Kasaba (1997), a figure close to the director's own world in Mayıs Sıkıntısı (1999), and the weary photographer Mahmut in Uzak (2002). The last of these won him the best actor prize at Cannes in 2003, shared with his co-star Mehmet Emin Toprak, a year after a comparable award at the Orhon Murat Arıburnu prizes.

He later appeared in Siyah Beyaz (2010) and Paranın Kokusu (2018), and in 2011 wrote and directed the feature Yurt. He has also sat on the jury of the Ankara International Film Festival.