Mesut Uçakan

Mesut Uçakan — Biography

Mesut Uçakan is a director, screenwriter and producer known for films that foreground the national and local identity of Turkish cinema. He is associated with Reis Bey, Yalnız Değilsiniz and İskilipli Atıf Hoca / Kelebekler Sonsuza Uçar, and in 2019 he received the Presidential Culture and Arts Grand Award in cinema. He began shooting his new film Sonsuz Güzel in Ahlat in June 2026.

A graduate of the cinema and television department of a journalism and public relations college, he entered the profession in the early 1970s with film writing and worked as an assistant and screenwriter at film companies; in 1976 he formed a five-person team and made his first feature, Lanet. After Rahmet ve Gazap, Öç and Sessiz Ölüm in the 1980s, he drew attention in 1987 with the series Kavanozdaki Adam, about a brain transplant. Reis Bey (1988), adapted from a book by Necip Fazıl Kısakürek, won the Ministry of Culture's achievement award and the Writers' Union best film award, while İskilipli Atıf Hoca (1993) brought him the Golden Orange Audience Jury award and a best director award. Later he made Ölümsüz Karanfiller, Anne ya da Leyla and Anka Kuşu, and produced the series Sevda Kuşun Kanadında and İncir Ağacı. In 2021 he returned to the screen with Suveyda.

He published the magazine Mutlak Fikir Estetiği ve Sinema for six issues in 1997 and has run the cinema magazine Sonsuzkare since 2003. He is the author of the poetry book Sıkı Tut Ellerimi and the cinema book Türk Sinemasında İdeoloji.