Berkay Ateş

Berkay Ateş — Biography

Berkay Ateş is an actor and playwright who works across cinema, television and theatre at once. Wide audiences know him as Cengiz Yıldız in Anne and Mahsun in Çukur; in film he made his name as Ahmet in Emin Alper's Abluka. He is in the cast of Alper's Kurtuluş, which won the Silver Bear at the 2026 Berlinale, and he performs on stage in Sessizliği Vurun.

His path began in the theatre. He won a place in Statistics-Mathematics at Mimar Sinan University, left it for the Theatre Department of the State Conservatory, and started out at Semaver Kumpanya. With classmates Emir Çubukçu and Can Kulan he founded Tiyatro D22 in Galata and wrote plays for it, among them Kuş Öpücüğü and Karabatak. A second phase came with film: after a small part in Yarım Kalan Mucize, Abluka earned him the Promising Young Actor award at the Adana Golden Boll festival in 2015. Television was the third phase: İstanbul Sokakları, Anne, Gülizar, Çukur, and Ozan Akınsel in Alev Alev. Over the same years he also appeared in films such as Görülmüştür and Karanlık Gece.

His writing has been recognised too: his play Hakikat, Elbet Bir Gün won in the theatre category of the 2017 Cevdet Kudret Literature Awards. His father's family is from Ardahan and his mother's from Malatya.