Short to Feature - Ozan Açıktan
This year's guest of the "Short to Feature" section, where we focus on successful directors whose cinema journey started with short films and continued with feature films, is director Ozan Açıktan. The director's first short film Marlis, which was also featured in our festival years ago, and his third feature film Silsile will meet the audience as part of the section. Ozan Açıktan, who directed Netflix's first original Turkish film, as well as important films such as My Mother's Wound, Among Family, will share his experiences and his journey in the industry with the festival audience in this conversation.
About Ozan Açıktan
Born in Eskisehir in 1978, Ozan Açıktan received his undergraduate degree from Ankara University, Faculty Of Communication, Radio Tv and Cinema, in 2000.
During his studies he started shooting short films that later have been screened and awarded internationally. Ozan has started to work in the film industry as an AD in feature films and tv series. Following his undergraduate studies, between 2002 – 2004, Açıktan continued his studies in the department of Director of Photography in Lodz, Polish National Film School.
After coming back to Istanbul in 2006, Açıktan received the best 2nd short fiction film award in Metro-Tursak Short film Contest, and he was granted to study in Baden-Württemberg Film Academy, in Ludwigsburg, Germany, focusing on scriptwriting and dramaturgy. There he started to collaborate with Keith Cunningham and they have been developing projects together since then. The same year he was accepted to Berlinale Talent Campus.
Ozan was awarded the “Crystal Apple“, as “The Best Director”, by Turkish Association of Advertising Agencies at the end of 2006 with the “Antalya Film Festival Spots” and he has recieved his second ‘Crystal Apple’ for the “The Best Director” with the “Ipragaz-the dog” spot, in july 2008.’
Ozan’s Akbank Jazz Festival, ‘the jazz of the city’ spot has won a Gold Epica in the 22nd Epica Awards (the largest European advertising awards competition) for the year 2008 and the ‘The Jazz Of The City’ has also been the first Turkish commercial to be the finalist in Cannes Lions 2008 and New York International Advertising Awards. His first viral commercial for ISTANBLUE Vodka got over 6 million hits nation wide in 2011.
His first feature with Bkm Films, “Comedy Kitchen: Holiday Recipes” has been released in 2010 and was 6th in the national box office the same year.
Ozan’s second feature film is ‘Sen Kimsin?’. It reached 1,5 million in the box office to become the third in the national box office in 2012.
Si̇lsi̇le-“The Consequences” is Ozan’s third feature, which was written by Cem Akaş- Faruk Özerten and Ozan Açıktan. In 2014, the film got Best Cinematography at the Istanbul International Film Festival, best supporting actor, best supporting actress and best young actor awards at Adana Altın Koza film festival.
Later on Ozan had co-written and directed My Mother’s Wound, which was shot in Belgrade and released in Turkey 2016.
In 2017 Ozan has directed Among Family, which was written by Gülse Birsel, and the film became to 9th in the All Time Box Office in Turkey with 5.5 million attendance.
The movie he made in 2019 was “One Way to Tomorrow” and it was an adaptation of Drazen Kuljanin’s movie, which Ozan co-wrote with Faruk Özerten. One Way to Tomorrow became the first Turkish Netflix original and was released world wide. As the second movie of the “Love and Memory Triology for Netflix” - “Last Summer” was shot in 2020 script was written by Sami Berat Marçalı and Ozan had co-written the story.
The third movie of the triology “Don’t Leave” was released in Netflix in 2022.
* All workshops and talks organized as part of the 20th Akbank Short Film Festival are free of charge. Participation is limited to side events of the festival.
* You can get your event participation card from Akbank Sanat's information desk one hour before the event.