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Ilker Çatak was born in Berlin on January 11 1984. In 1996, he moved with his family to Istanbul, where he attended the embassy school. Following his graduation, he returned to Germany and gathered first-hand experiences working on film productions. In 2005, Çatak started to direct his own shorts, moreover he made commercials for companies like Allianz, Deutsche Telekom and Audi. Until 2010, he studied film direction at the Dekra Hochschule für Medien in Berlin. The following year, he received a writer scholarship from the Bayerische Rundfunk.
From 2012 until 2014, Çatak attended the Hamburg Media School, from which he graduated with a master degree. His student short "Wo wir sind" (2014) won a Max-Ophüls-Preis and made it on the shortlist of the Student Academy Awards. His graduation short "Sadakat" (2015) garnered the grand prize in the short competition of the Max-Ophüls-Preis Festival, a First Steps Award and a Student Academy Award.
The coming-of-age drama "Es war einmal Indianerland" ("Once Upon A Time In Indian Country", DE/FR 2017), an adaptation of the novel by Nils Mohl, marked Ilker Çatak's feature film debut as director.
Two years later, Çatak's next film premiered at the Munich Film Festival: "Es gilt das gesprochene Wort" ("I Was, I Am, I Will Be"), about a German pilot (Anne Ratte-Polle) who gets involved in a sham marriage with a much younger Turk, went on to win numerous awards, including two Förderpreise Neues Deutsches Kino and the Bavarian Film Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. Çatak was nominated at the German Film Awards for screenplay (again with Nils Mohl) and direction.
In summer 2019, filming took place on Ilker Çatak's next feature film project, "Räuberhände" ("Stambul Garden"), a film adaptation of the novel of the same name by Finn-Ole Heinrich, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Gabriele Simon. The world premiere took place in April 2021 at the Lichter Filmfest, which was held online due to the COVID pandemic. However, the film was only shown to the festival jury. The premiere with audience participation took place in June 2021 at the Goldener Spatz children's media festival. In September 2021, "Räuberhände" was regularly released in cinemas, and in October Çatak's contribution to the TV crime series "Tatort" was broadcast, "Borowski und der gute Mensch" starring Axel Milberg.
At the Bavarian Film Award 2022, the two "Räuberhände" lead actors Mekyas Mulugeta and Emil von Schönfels were awarded Best Newcomer Actor, the film also received the Thomas Strittmatter Award for Best Screenplay.
Çatak's next film, "Das Lehrerzimmer" ("The Teachers' Lounge"), based on an original screenplay by him and Johannes Duncker, premiered in the Panorama of the 73rd Berlinale. In it, Leonie Benesch plays a young, idealistic grammar school teacher who wants to do everything right, but in doing so sets a devastating escalation in motion. The film was released in German cinemas in spring 2023, entered the race for the German Film Awards with seven nominations and won in key categories: Best Feature Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Editing and Best Female Lead. Furthermore, "Das Lehrerzimmer" received a nomination in the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 2024 Oscars®.