Mustafa Altıoklar

Mustafa Altıoklar — Biography

Mustafa Altıoklar was born on 17 June 1958 in the Ünye district of Ordu, into a family with roots in Konya on his father's side and Georgian ancestry from Batumi on his mother's. After TED Ankara College he graduated from Istanbul University's Cerrahpaşa Faculty of Medicine and completed a master's in physiotherapy and rehabilitation at Gazi University, but the attention his short film received redirected him toward filmmaking. He once chaired the Turkish Film Directors' Association. He became known for directing and writing films such as "İstanbul Kanatlarımın Altında," "Ağır Roman," "Asansör," "Dansöz," "Banyo" and "O Şimdi Asker," winning a promising new director prize at the Ankara Film Festival in 1993 for "Denize Hançer Düştü" and a best director award in 2003 for "O Şimdi Asker." He separated from his first wife, Yasemin Erkan, with whom he has a daughter, Arya Su, and is the uncle of actor Sarp Levendoğlu. In 2016 a defamation suit brought against him by then-President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan over his tweets was withdrawn by year's end; in July 2017 he was made subject to a detention order over social media posts concerning the anniversary of the coup attempt.