İlker Çatak, born in 1984 in Berlin, graduated from high school in Istanbul and then studied film and television directing in Berlin and Hamburg. His graduation film, Sadakat, received numerous international awards and was given the Gold Student Oscar in 2015. Çatak’s feature film debut followed in 2016, an adaptation of the award-winning youth novel Es war einmal Indianerland (Once Upon a Time in Indianerland). In 2019, his second feature film, Es gilt das gesprochene Wort (The spoken word counts), followed and was awarded the prize for the Best Screenplay at the Munich Film Festival and bronze for the Best film at the German Film Prize. Çatak’s third feature film, Räuberhände (Robber Hands), will be released in German and Turkish cinemas in 2021. He directed television for the first time with TATORT – Borowski und der gute Mensch (2021) (Crime Scene – Borowski and the Good Man). In addition to writing and directing, Çatak also teaches filmmaking and has taught at universities in the USA, Germany, Turkey, Japan, Italy and Greece.
 
İlker Çatak was a resident at Tarabya Cultural Academy from October to December 2017.