Erol Yesilkaya (born Juny 6, 1976 in

Istanbul Istanbul ( , ; tr, İstanbul ), formerly known as Constantinople ( grc-gre, Κωνσταντινούπολις; la, Constantinopolis), is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, ...

) is a Turkish-German screenwriter.

Life and work

Erol Yesilkaya was born in Istanbul,

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

in 1976 and then moved with his parents to

Krefeld Krefeld ( , ; li, Krieëvel ), also spelled Crefeld until 1925 (though the spelling was still being used in British papers throughout the Second World War), is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located northwest of Düsseldorf, i ...

, where he grew up. After he finished the Gymnasium and received his

Abitur ''Abitur'' (), often shortened colloquially to ''Abi'', is a qualification granted at the end of secondary education in Germany. It is conferred on students who pass their final exams at the end of ISCED 3, usually after twelve or thirteen year ...

, Yesilkaya worked as a

location manager The location manager is a member of the film crew responsible for finding and securing locations to be used, obtaining all fire, police and other governmental permits, and coordinating the logistics for the production to complete its work. They a ...

. Then he studied ''Modern German Literature'' and

Media Studies Media studies is a discipline and field of study that deals with the content, history, and effects of various media; in particular, the mass media. Media Studies may draw on traditions from both the social sciences and the humanities, but mostly ...

at the

University of Marburg The Philipps University of Marburg (german: Philipps-Universität Marburg) was founded in 1527 by Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse, which makes it one of Germany's oldest universities and the oldest still operating Protestant university in the wor ...

. During his studies, Yesilkaya was involved in many film and cultural projects as a promoter, organizer or

projectionist A projectionist is a person who operates a movie projector, particularly as an employee of a movie theater. Projectionists are also known as "operators". Historical background N.B. The dates given in the subject headings are approximate. Early ...

and filmed various

short film A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...

scripts Script may refer to: Writing systems * Script, a distinctive writing system, based on a repertoire of specific elements or symbols, or that repertoire * Script (styles of handwriting) ** Script typeface, a typeface with characteristics of handw ...

, many of which were his own works. After successfully completing his studies in

Marburg Marburg ( or ) is a university town in the German federal state (''Bundesland'') of Hesse, capital of the Marburg-Biedenkopf district (''Landkreis''). The town area spreads along the valley of the river Lahn and has a population of approximate ...

in 2004, Yesilkaya moved to

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

, where he wrote his first

screenplay ''ScreenPlay'' is a television drama anthology series broadcast on BBC2 between 9 July 1986 and 27 October 1993. Background After single-play anthology series went off the air, the BBC introduced several showcases for made-for-television, fe ...

. Since 2008 Yesilkaya lives and works in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

. There, he is part of a authors' collective named ''Schreibkombinat Kurt Klinke''. As a member of the collective, Yesilkaya has written various episodes for police crime drama series such as

Tatort ''Tatort'' ("Crime scene") is a German language police procedural television series that has been running continuously since 1970 with some 30 feature-length episodes per year, which makes it the longest-running German TV drama. Developed by ...

among others. In addition, he has also written screenplays for popular

drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been ...

and

television series A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite television, satellite, or cable television, cable, excluding breaking news, television adverti ...

such as

Dogs of Berlin ''Dogs of Berlin'' is a streaming television series and the second German series produced for Netflix after ''Dark (TV series), Dark''. First pictures of the ongoing production were shown in April 2018, after production started in November 2017. ...

, Sløborn, Hausen and

Notruf Hafenkante ''Notruf Hafenkante'' is a German television series broadcast on ZDF. It is set in Hamburg and is about the members of the police department PK 21 and the doctors of the fictional hospital Elbkrankenhaus. The show's premise is modelled on the ...

. The Tatort episodes, which were made in collaboration with the German film director

Sebastian Marka Sebastian Marka (born 1978 in Geneva, Switzerland) is a German film director and editor. Life and work Sebastian Marka was born in Geneva in 1978 and grew up in Königsbach-Stein near Karlsruhe. After completing his Zivildienst (alternative civi ...

were almost all praised by the German press and received good

IMDb IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...

ratings. In addition, some of the crime scene episodes for which Yesilkaya wrote the scripts won German and international

awards An award, sometimes called a distinction, is something given to a recipient as a token of recognition of excellence in a certain field. When the token is a medal, ribbon or other item designed for wearing, it is known as a decoration. An award ...

. For example, the Tatort - episodes ''Die Wahrheit'' and Long Live Death (Es lebe der Tod) were nominated for the ''German Television Crime Award'' in 2017 and the episode ''Das Nest'' in 2020. The Tatort-episode ''Long Live Death'' had its international premiere at the

Austin Film Festival Austin Film Festival (AFF), founded in 1994, is an organization in Austin, Texas, that focuses on writers’ creative contributions to film. Initially, AFF was called the Austin Heart of Film Screenwriters Conference and functioned to launch the ...

in 2016, where Yesilkaya was nominated for an

audience award An audience award is typically an award at a film festival (or some other type of cultural festival or similar competition) which is selected by the audience attending the festival, rather than by the festival jury or a group of critics. Examples ...

. It was also screened at the

Garden State Film Festival The Garden State Film Festival is a film festival in the United States held in Asbury Park, New Jersey which debuts more than 200 independent films annually over four days each spring. The festival was founded in 2002 in Sea Girt, New Jersey by D ...

, the

Nashville Film Festival The Nashville Film Festival (NashFilm), held annually in Nashville, Tennessee, is the oldest running film festival in the South and one of the oldest in the United States. In 2016, Nashville Film Festival received more than 6,700 submissions from ...

and the

St. Louis International Film Festival The St. Louis International Film Festival (also known as SLIFF or Cinema St. Louis) is an annual film festival in St. Louis, Missouri, which has been running since 1992. The coordinating organization changed its name to "Cinema St. Louis" in 2003 ...

. Then, Yesilkaya and Marka were nominated for the prestigious German

Grimme Award The Grimme-Preis ("Grimme Award"; prior to 2011: Adolf-Grimme-Preis) is one of the most prestigious German television awards. It is named after the first general director of Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk, Adolf Grimme.showrunner A showrunner (or colloquially a helmer) is the top-level executive producer of a television series production who has creative and management authority through combining the responsibilities of employer and, in comedy or dramas, typically also th ...

- principle". During the process of making a film, from idea development to

film editing Film editing is both a creative and a technical part of the post-production process of filmmaking. The term is derived from the traditional process of working with film stock, film which increasingly involves the use Digital cinema, of digital ...

, Yesilkaya and Marka would be in constant exchange of information to achieve a good result. On October 20, 2020, the

dystopian A dystopia (from Ancient Greek δυσ- "bad, hard" and τόπος "place"; alternatively cacotopiaCacotopia (from κακός ''kakos'' "bad") was the term used by Jeremy Bentham in his 1818 Plan of Parliamentary Reform (Works, vol. 3, p. 493). ...

TV -

Science fiction film Science fiction (or sci-fi) is a film genre that uses speculative, fictional science-based depictions of phenomena that are not fully accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial lifeforms, spacecraft, robots, cyborgs, interstellar ...

''Exit'' was broadcast on the nationwide German television channel

Das Erste Das Erste (; "The First") is the flagship national television channel of the ARD association of public broadcasting corporations in Germany. ''Das Erste'' is jointly operated by the nine regional public broadcasting corporations that are member ...

. For the film, Yesilkaya wrote the script and Marka directed again. It is set in the year 2047 and addresses the dimension and impact of

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...

and

digital life {{Distinguish, Artificial life Digital Life is a research and educational program about radically rethinking of the human-computer interactive experience. It integrates digital world (information & services) and physical world (physical objects/e ...

. The German film critic Arno Frank of

Spiegel Online ''Der Spiegel (online)'' is a German news website. Before the renaming in January 2020, the website's name was ''Spiegel Online'' (short ''SPON''). It was founded in 1994 as the online offshoot of the German news magazine, ''Der Spiegel'', wit ...

said, that a ''"perfectly formed dystopia like "Exit" ..has not yet been seen on public television"'' in Germany. (Eine formvollendete Dystopie wie "Exit" ..hat man bei den Öffentlich-Rechtlichen noch nicht gesehen.) It was announced in the press on February 2, 2021, that Marka and Yesilkaya are to film the German

fantasy novel Fantasy literature is literature set in an imaginary universe, often but not always without any locations, events, or people from the real world. Magic, the supernatural and magical creatures are common in many of these imaginary worlds. Fa ...

bestseller A bestseller is a book or other media noted for its top selling status, with bestseller lists published by newspapers, magazines, and book store chains. Some lists are broken down into classifications and specialties (novel, nonfiction book, cookb ...

''The Gryphon'' (Der Greif, 1989) by

Wolfgang Hohlbein Wolfgang Hohlbein (born 15 August 1953 in Weimar, Bezirk Erfurt) is a German writer of science fiction, fantasy and horror fiction who lives near Neuss, North Rhine-Westphalia. His wife, Heike Hohlbein, is also a writer and often works with her ...

as a series for

Amazon Prime Video Amazon Prime Video, also known simply as Prime Video, is an American Video on demand#Subscription models, subscription video on-demand Over-the-top media service, over-the-top Streaming media, streaming and Renting, rental service of Amazon (c ...

. ''The Gryphon'' is scheduled for release in 2023.

Filmography

* 2008: (TV movie) * 2010: Gonger II (TV movie) * 2012: Die 13. Wahrheit -

Uwe Ochsenknecht Uwe Adam Ochsenknecht (; born 7 January 1956) is a German actor and singer. Career Films Ochsenknecht has starred in include ''Das Boot'' (1981), ''Schtonk!'' (1992), and the TV miniseries ''Frank Herbert's Dune'' (2000). In the early 1990s, ...

erzählt (TV series) * 2014:

- Alle meine Jungs (TV series) * 2015: Tatort - Das Haus am Ende der Straße (TV series) * 2015: Tatort - Hinter dem Spiegel (TV series) * 2016: Tatort - Die Wahrheit (TV series) * 2016: Long Live Death ''(Tatort - Es lebe der Tod)'', (TV series) * 2016: Tatort - Die Wahrheit (TV series) * 2017: Tatort - Der Tod ist unser ganzes Leben (TV series) * 2018: Tatort - Meta (TV series) * 2018:

(episode ''Begegnung''), (drama series) * 2018: Tatort - Wer jetzt allein ist (TV series) * 2019:

(6 episodes from 2015 to 2019), (TV series) * 2019: Tatort - Ein Tag wie jeder andere (TV series) * 2019: Tatort - Das Nest (TV series) * 2020: Hausen (episodes ''Juris Reise '' and ''Hausregeln''), (TV series) * 2020: Tatort - Parasomnia (TV series) * 2020: Exit (TV movie) * 2022: Souls (TV series) * 2022: Tatort - Das Opfer (TV series)

Awards and nominations

2016 * Nomination for the

Audience award An audience award is typically an award at a film festival (or some other type of cultural festival or similar competition) which is selected by the audience attending the festival, rather than by the festival jury or a group of critics. Examples ...

in the category ''Stories from Abroad'' for ''Long Live Death''

Grimme-Preis The Grimme-Preis ("Grimme Award"; prior to 2011: Adolf-Grimme-Preis) is one of the most prestigious German television awards. It is named after the first general director of Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk, Adolf Grimme.Sebastian Marka Sebastian Marka (born 1978 in Geneva, Switzerland) is a German film director and editor. Life and work Sebastian Marka was born in Geneva in 1978 and grew up in Königsbach-Stein near Karlsruhe. After completing his Zivildienst (alternative civi ...

(director) in the category ''Fiction'' for ''Tatort: Die Wahrheit'' Grimme-Preis 2019 * Grimme-Preis (Grimme-Award) for Erol Yesilkaya (screenplay) und Sebastian Marka (director) in the category ''Outstanding Individual Achievement - Fiction'' for the ''Tatort: Meta''

Canneseries The Cannes International Series Festival (french: Festival International des Séries de Cannes), usually called the Canneseries, is an international television festival held annually in Cannes, France. The festival aims to showcase and promote t ...

2022 * Prize ''Best Screenplay'' for Erol Yesilkaya (screenplay), Alex Eslam (Creator), Lisa van Brakel (screenplay) and Senad Halilbasic (screenplay) for ''Souls''

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Yesilkaya, Erol 1976 births Turkish emigrants to West Germany Living people Mass media people from North Rhine-Westphalia German screenwriters German male screenwriters People from Krefeld