Kaan Müjdeci

Kaan Müjdeci — Biography

Hüseyin Kaan Müjdeci was born on 24 September 1980 in Yozgat and now divides his time between Istanbul and Berlin. He began his filmmaking career with the 2010 short Tag der Deutschen Einheit, shot in Berlin, followed by Jerry, filmed in New York in 2011 and shown at the Berlinale Talent Campus of the 61st Berlin Film Festival. His documentary short Babalar ve Oğulları (Fathers and Sons), about dogfighting in central Anatolia, screened at the 2012 Kraków Film Festival and became the springboard for his feature debut Sivas, shot the same year in Yerköy, Yozgat. Premiering at the 71st Venice Film Festival in 2014, Sivas won the Special Jury Prize there, followed by Best Screenplay at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival and a Special Jury Prize at the Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival; it was also submitted as Turkey's official entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the 88th Academy Awards. In 2021 Müjdeci wrote and directed a seven-part series adapting Shakespeare's Hamlet, which premiered at Series Mania in Lille, France. His second feature, Iguana Tokyo, passed through development platforms including Cannes' Cinéfondation L'Atelier and the Venice Gap-Financing Market before its Japanese theatrical release in 2024. He is now developing the project Dreamgirl, which was selected for the Berlinale Co-Production Market and won an award there in early 2025.