Tolga Örnek

Tolga Örnek — Biography

Tolga Örnek was born on August 25, 1972, in Istanbul, the son of Özden Örnek, a former commander of the Turkish Naval Forces. After Robert College, he studied metallurgical and materials engineering at Istanbul Technical University, earned a master's degree in materials science at the University of Florida, and then completed a second graduate degree in film and visual arts at American University.

Back in Turkey, he made documentaries for Ekip Film including Atatürk, Kuruluştan Kurtuluşa Fenerbahçe, Topkapı Sarayı, Tanrıların Tahtı Nemrut Dağı, Çeliğin Kalbi Ereğli and Hittites, before his 2005 documentary Gallipoli earned him an honorary medal in the Order of Australia. He moved into fiction with Cars of the Revolution (2008); Losers' Club (2011), which he also co-wrote with Mehmet Ada Öztekin, became one of the highest-grossing Turkish films ever made, while that same year's action thriller Labyrinth found international distribution. After Senin Hikayen (2013) and Sen Benim Herşeyimsin (2016), he returned to screens in 2024 with Mucize Aynalar, an adaptation of Aziz Nesin's stories that he has called the most important project of his career.