Erol Yesilkaya (born June 6, 1976 in

Istanbul Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...

) is a Turkish-German screenwriter.

Life and work

Erol Yesilkaya was born in Istanbul,

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

in 1976 and grew up in

Krefeld Krefeld ( , ; ), also spelled Crefeld until 1925 (though the spelling was still being used in British papers throughout the Second World War), is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, in western Germany. It is located northwest of Düsseldorf, its c ...

, Germany. After he finished the Gymnasium and received his

Abitur ''Abitur'' (), often shortened colloquially to ''Abi'', is a qualification granted at the end of secondary education in Germany. It is conferred on students who pass their final exams at the end of ISCED 3, usually after twelve or thirteen year ...

, Yesilkaya worked as a

location manager The location manager is a member of the film crew responsible for finding and securing locations to be used, obtaining all fire, police and other governmental permits, and coordinating the logistics for the production to complete its work. They a ...

. Then he studied ''Modern German Literature'' and

Media Studies Media studies is a discipline and field of study that deals with the content, history, and effects of various media; in particular, the mass media. Media studies may draw on traditions from both the social sciences and the humanities, but it mos ...

at the

University of Marburg The Philipps University of Marburg () is a public research university located in Marburg, Germany. It was founded in 1527 by Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse, which makes it one of Germany's oldest universities and the oldest still operating Prote ...

. During his studies, Yesilkaya was involved in many film and cultural projects as a promoter, organizer or

projectionist A projectionist is a person who operates a movie projector, particularly as an employee of a movie theater. Projectionists are also known as "operators". Historical background N.B. The dates given in the subject headings are approximate. Early ...

and filmed various

short film A short film is a film with a low running time. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of not more than 40 minutes including all credits". Other film o ...

scripts, many of which were his own works. After successfully completing his studies in

Marburg Marburg (; ) is a college town, university town in the States of Germany, German federal state () of Hesse, capital of the Marburg-Biedenkopf Districts of Germany, district (). The town area spreads along the valley of the river Lahn and has ...

in 2004, Yesilkaya moved to

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

, where he wrote his first

screenplay A screenplay, or script, is a written work produced for a film, television show (also known as a '' teleplay''), or video game by screenwriters (cf. ''stage play''). Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of w ...

. Since 2008 Yesilkaya lives and works in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

. There, he is part of a authors' collective named ''Schreibkombinat Kurt Klinke''. As a member of the collective, Yesilkaya has written various episodes for police crime drama series such as

Tatort ("Crime Scene") is a German-language police procedural television series that has been running continuously since 1970 with 30 feature-length episodes per year, making it the longest-running German TV drama. Developed by the German public-se ...

among others. In addition, he has also written screenplays for popular

drama Drama is the specific Mode (literature), mode of fiction Mimesis, represented in performance: a Play (theatre), play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on Radio drama, radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a g ...

and

television series A television show, TV program (), or simply a TV show, is the general reference to any content produced for viewing on a television set that is broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, and cable, or distributed digitally on streaming plat ...

such as Dogs of Berlin, Sløborn, Hausen and

Notruf Hafenkante is a German television series broadcast on ZDF. It is set in Hamburg and is about the members of the police department PK 21 and the doctors of the fictional hospital Elbkrankenhaus. The show's premise is modelled on the Davidwache police st ...

. In 2012 Yesilkaya and the German director

Sebastian Marka Sebastian Marka (born 1978 in Geneva, Switzerland) is a German film director and editor. Life and work Sebastian Marka was born in Geneva in 1978 and grew up in Königsbach-Stein near Karlsruhe. Marka began studying at the Filmakademie Baden-W ...

had met and worked together frequently until then. The award-winning three Tatort-episodes Long Live Death (Tatort: Es lebe der Tod) , Tatort: Die Wahrheit, Tatort: Meta and four other episodes were created in collaboration with Marka. Yesilkaya wrote the screenplays for all seven episodes. In an interview with the German trade magazine ''Blickpunkt:Film'', Marka compares their cooperation to the "

showrunner A showrunner is the top-level executive producer of a television series. The position outranks other creative and management personnel, including episode directors, in contrast to feature films, in which the director has creative control over th ...

- principle". During the process of making a film, from idea development to

film editing Film editing is both a creative and a technical part of the post-production process of filmmaking. The term is derived from the traditional process of working with film stock, film which increasingly involves the use Digital cinema, of digital ...

, Yesilkaya and Marka would be in constant exchange of information to achieve a good result. On October 20, 2020, the

dystopian A dystopia (lit. "bad place") is an imagined world or society in which people lead wretched, dehumanized, fearful lives. It is an imagined place (possibly state) in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmenta ...

TV -

Science fiction film Science fiction (or sci-fi) is a film genre that uses Speculative fiction, speculative, fictional science-based depictions of phenomena that are not fully accepted by mainstream science, such as Extraterrestrial life in fiction, extraterrestria ...

''Exit'' was broadcast on the nationwide German television channel

Das Erste Das Erste (; "The First") is the flagship national television channel of the ARD (broadcaster), ARD association of public broadcasting corporations in Germany. ''Das Erste'' is jointly operated by the ARD (broadcaster)#Institutions and member org ...

. For the film, Yesilkaya wrote the script and Marka directed again. It is set in the year 2047 and addresses the dimension and impact of

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

and digital life. The German film critic Arno Frank of

Spiegel Online ' () is a German news website. It was established in 1994 as ''Spiegel Online'' as a content mirror of the magazine ''Der Spiegel''. In 1995, the site began producing original stories and it introduced ''Spiegel Online International'' for artic ...

said, that a ''"perfectly formed dystopia like "Exit" ..has not yet been seen on public television"'' in Germany. (Eine formvollendete Dystopie wie "Exit" ..hat man bei den Öffentlich-Rechtlichen noch nicht gesehen.) Yesilkaya and Marka also filmed the German

fantasy novel Fantasy literature is literature set in an imaginary universe, often but not always without any locations, events, or people from the real world. magic (paranormal), Magic, the supernatural and Legendary creature, magical creatures are common i ...

''The Gryphon'' (Der Greif, 1989) by

Wolfgang Hohlbein Wolfgang Hohlbein (born 15 August 1953) is a German writer of science fiction, fantasy and horror fiction. His wife, Heike Hohlbein, is also a writer and they frequently collaborate. With more than 200 published books and more than 43 million s ...

as television series for

Amazon Prime Video Amazon Prime Video, known simply as Prime Video, is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming television service owned by Amazon. The service primarily distributes films and television series produced or co-produced by ...

. Here, Yesilkaya was

alongside Marka and responsible for the scripts. ''The Gryphon'' was released on Amazon Prime on May 25, 2023.

Reception

The Tatort-episodes, which were made in collaboration with director

were almost all praised by the German press and received good

IMDb IMDb, historically known as the Internet Movie Database, is an online database of information related to films, television series, podcasts, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and biograp ...

ratings. In addition, some of the crime scene episodes for which Yesilkaya wrote the scripts won German and international

awards An award, sometimes called a distinction, is given to a recipient as a token of recognition of excellence in a certain field. When the token is a medal, ribbon or other item designed for wearing, it is known as a decoration. An award may be d ...

. For example, the Tatort-episodes ''Die Wahrheit'' and Long Live Death (Es lebe der Tod) were nominated for the ''German Television Crime Award'' in 2017 and the episode ''Das Nest'' in 2020. The Tatort-episode ''Long Live Death'' had its international premiere at the

Austin Film Festival Austin Film Festival (AFF), founded in 1994, is an organization in Austin, Texas, that focuses on writers' creative contributions to film. Initially, AFF was called the Austin Heart of Film Screenwriters Conference and functioned to launch the c ...

in 2016, where Yesilkaya was nominated for an audience award. Then, Yesilkaya and Marka were nominated for the prestigious German

Grimme Award The Grimme-Preis (Grimme Award), formerly known as the Adolf-Grimme-Preis, is one of the most prestigious German television awards. It is named after the first general director of Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk, Adolf Grimme. The Grimme Institute ...

''(Grimme-Preis)'' in 2017 for their Tatort-episode ''Die Wahrheit''. They received it two years later for their Tatort-episode ''Meta''.

Filmography

Screenwriter

* 2008: (TV movie) * 2010: Gonger II (TV movie) * 2012: Die 13. Wahrheit -

Uwe Ochsenknecht Uwe Adam Ochsenknecht (; born 7 January 1956) is a German actor and singer. Career Films Ochsenknecht has starred in include ''Das Boot'' (1981), '' Schtonk!'' (1992), and the TV miniseries ''Frank Herbert's Dune'' (2000). In the early 1990s ...

erzählt (TV series) * 2014:

- Alle meine Jungs (TV series) * 2015: Tatort - Das Haus am Ende der Straße (TV series) * 2015: Tatort - Hinter dem Spiegel (TV series) * 2016: Tatort - Die Wahrheit (TV series) * 2016: Long Live Death ''(Tatort - Es lebe der Tod)'', (TV series) * 2016: Tatort - Die Wahrheit (TV series) * 2017: Tatort - Der Tod ist unser ganzes Leben (TV series) * 2018: Tatort - Meta (TV series) * 2018: Dogs of Berlin (episode ''Begegnung''), (drama series) * 2018: Tatort - Wer jetzt allein ist (TV series) * 2019:

(6 episodes from 2015 to 2019), (TV series) * 2019: Tatort - Ein Tag wie jeder andere (TV series) * 2019: Tatort - Das Nest (TV series) * 2020: Hausen (episodes ''Juris Reise '' and ''Hausregeln''), (TV series) * 2020: Tatort - Parasomnia (TV series) * 2020: Exit (TV movie) * 2022: Souls (TV series) * 2022: Tatort - Das Opfer (TV series) * 2023: The Gryphon (TV series)

Other

* 2023: The Gryphon (TV series), (creator, producer, showrunner)

Awards and nominations

2016 * Nomination for the Audience award in the category ''Stories from Abroad'' for ''Long Live Death''

Grimme-Preis The Grimme-Preis (Grimme Award), formerly known as the Adolf-Grimme-Preis, is one of the most prestigious German television awards. It is named after the first general director of Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk, Adolf Grimme. The Grimme Institute ...

2017 * Nomination for the ''Grimme-Preis'' together with

(director) in the category ''Fiction'' for ''Tatort: Die Wahrheit'' Grimme-Preis 2019 * Grimme-Preis (Grimme-Award) for Erol Yesilkaya (screenplay) und Sebastian Marka (director) in the category ''Outstanding Individual Achievement - Fiction'' for the ''Tatort: Meta''

Canneseries The Cannes International Series Festival (), usually called the Canneseries, is an international television festival held annually in Cannes, France. The festival aims to showcase and promote television series from around the world. The festival ...

2022 * Prize ''Best Screenplay'' for Erol Yesilkaya (screenplay), Alex Eslam (Creator), Lisa van Brakel (screenplay) and Senad Halilbasic (screenplay) for ''Souls''

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Yesilkaya, Erol 1976 births Turkish emigrants to West Germany Living people Mass media people from North Rhine-Westphalia German screenwriters German male screenwriters People from Krefeld