Yılmaz Arslan

Yılmaz Arslan — Biography

German filmmaker Yılmaz Arslan, who is of Turkish descent, works as an "auteur director": he writes and directs his films and often produces them as well. He is best known for Langer Gang, Yara and Brudermord, which won the Silver Leopard at Locarno. Today his company MaxMa Film also produces other directors' films.

Born in Kazanlı, Arslan came to Germany at the age of seven and found his way to art through the theatre. While still at school in Neckargemünd he founded a theatre group called Sommer-Winter; his own play Ohnmacht des Alltags got him invited to the Theatertreffen der Jugend in Berlin in 1989. He presented his first feature, Langer Gang, at 24; it collected the best debut director prize at San Sebastián, the Silver Rose in Bergamo and the Interfilm award at the Max Ophüls Prize festival, and was nominated for the 1993 German Film Award. On his second film, Yara, he handled script, production and direction together, and it won the Film Club Award at the same festival. Brudermord (2005), a co-production with Tarantula Luxembourg, was sold to 26 countries.

Alongside filmmaking he taught cinema across the Goethe-Institut network in Europe and advised on script development. His company also produced Shahbaz Noshir's short Angst isst Seele auf (2003). Later Arslan released Sandstern (2018) in cinemas and in 2019 produced Donato Rotunno's Io sto bene, which was on the longlist for Luxembourg's foreign-language Oscar entry.