Semih
Kaplanoğlu

Semih Kaplanoglu is one of the most acclaimed writer-director-producers of contemporary filmmaking. Born and raised in Izmir, Turkey, he received BS in Cinema-Television from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Dokuz Eylül University, in 1984.

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Kaplanoglu made his debut feature in 2001 'Away From Home', and he was awarded Best Director in Singapore IFF.

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He then set up his own production company Kaplan Film and started writing and directing as an independent producer, making worldwide acclaimed international coproductions. 

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In 2005, his second feature 'Angel’s Fall' had World Premiere in Berlinale Forum and received Best Film Awards in Nantes, Kerala and Barcelona Alternativa FF.

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His third feature ‘Egg’, which premiered in 2007 at Cannes FF Quinzaine des Réalisateurs, brought Best Director awards in Fajr IFF, Valdivia IFF and Bangkok World FF. The film received around 30 awards including important national awards such as the Golden Orange (Antalya IFF) and the Golden Tulip award (Istanbul IFF). This film was the first part of the ‘Yusuf Trilogy’ which made Semih Kaplanoglu worldwide known as a director.

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In 2008 ‘Milk’ which took part in L'Atelier of the Cinéfondation in 2008, premired at Venice IFF Official Competition, screened at festivals around the world, earning him international awards, including Fipresci prize at the Istanbul IFF.

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‘Honey’ the third part of the ‘Yusuf Trilogy’, winner of Golden Bear award in 60th Berlinale IFF, traces the origins of a soul.

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In 2013 Kaplanoglu was invited to Cannes FF as a member of Cinéfondation & Short Film Jury member. 

Semih Kaplanoglu’s 2017 dated film ‘Grain’, received Best Film Award in 30th Tokyo Film Festival. This 35 mm Black&White shot film is a coproduction of Turkey, Germany, France, Sweden and Qatar, with Jean-Marc Barr, Ermin Bravo, Grigory Dobrygin and Cristina Flutur as cast and English as original language.  It took 5 years to complete the film.

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In 2018, he started working on ‘Commitment Trilogy’. 

2019 dated ‘Commitment Aslı’ was the Academy Award Nominee of Turkey is the first digital film from the director.

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In 2020, ‘Commitment Hasan’ was finished just before the pandemic hit the world causing lockdown.

Kaplanoglu is now working on the last part of the trilogy ‘Commitment Fikret’ which is an adaptation of well known Turkish author Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar’s novel ‘A Mind At Peace’.

  

As a producer, he contributed his fellow director Aida Begic’s 'Djeca' which earned a special mention in 2012 Cannes Un Certain Regard. The film is a Bosnian, German, French and Turkish co-production supported by Sarajevo Cinematograhy Fund, Eurimages, MDM, ZDF /ARTE, TRT, Fonds Sud Cinema and Torino Film Lab.  

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Semih Kaplanoglu, born in 1963, has also written many articles based on plastic arts and cinema which have been translated into foreign languages and published in many magazines and journals between 1987 and 2003.