Kutlug Ataman
(1961 - living) Turkey
Director
Born in Istanbul, Ataman left Turkey when he was 18 to study film in Los Angeles, earning a BA and an MFA at the University of California. Pursuing a career as a feature filmmaker, he stayed on in L.A., then lived in London, Paris, Berlin, Barcelona, and Buenos Aires before returning to Turkey in 1994.
Openly gay himself, Ataman's work often explores sexual identity and gender. In 1997 he filmed Turkish opera diva Semiha Berksoy, and his piece Women Who Wear Wigs featured four Turkish women - a revolutionary whose face remained obscured, well-known journalist and breast cancer survivor Nevval Sevindi, an anonymous devout Muslim student, and an activist and transsexual prostitute.
He continues to make features, such as 2005's 2 Girls and 1999's Lola and Bilidikid, which have garnered awards and critical acclaim at festivals and art houses around the world. Currently, he's in the preproduction stage of a two-film project to be shot in eastern Turkey.
Still, since the late 1990s, Ataman has developed an alternative practice as a visual artist whose film and video works have been shown in museums, galleries, and biennials, from Amsterdam to São Paulo to Sydney.
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