Cem Kaya
Cem Kaya was born in Schweinfurt in 1976. After studying communication design at the Merz Akademie in Stuttgart, he initially worked as a producer, editor and director for commercials and music videos. His first two feature-length documentaries were Arabeks and Remake, Remix, Rip-Off. While Arabeks was about the music culture of internal migration in Turkey, Remake, Remix, Rip-Off was about the Turkish film industry and its practice of remaking Hollywood films. Turkish knock-offs of successful films such as Star Wars, Rambo or The Exorcist, realized with minimal budgets. The documentary premiered at the Locarno Film Festival in 2014 and was an extraordinary international festival success. His latest film Love, Deutschmarks and Death deals with the music culture of migrants from Turkey in Germany. The film celebrated its world premiere at the Berlinale 2022 and won the Panorama Audience Award. Kaya uses extensive archive material from a wide variety of sources in his films. This colorful mix of material, as well as his own observations, are the ingredients for his extremely insightful and witty documentary essays. Kaya also works as a cameraman. In 2017, he took over the camera work on the investigative film 77sqm_9:26min by the London-based group Forensic Architecture about the reconstruction of the NSU murder of Halit Yozgat. The film premiered at documenta 14 in the same year.
Cem Kaya is a fellow of the Tarabya Cultural Academy from October 2023 to January 2024.
Cem Kaya was born in Schweinfurt in 1976. After studying communication design at the Merz Akademie in Stuttgart, he initially worked as a producer, editor and director for commercials and music videos. His first two feature-length documentaries were Arabeks and Remake, Remix, Rip-Off. While Arabeks was about the music culture of internal migration in Turkey, Remake, Remix, Rip-Off was about the Turkish film industry and its practice of remaking Hollywood films. Turkish knock-offs of successful films such as Star Wars, Rambo or The Exorcist, realized with minimal budgets. The documentary premiered at the Locarno Film Festival in 2014 and was an extraordinary international festival success. His latest film Love, Deutschmarks and Death deals with the music culture of migrants from Turkey in Germany. The film celebrated its world premiere at the Berlinale 2022 and won the Panorama Audience Award. Kaya uses extensive archive material from a wide variety of sources in his films. This colorful mix of material, as well as his own observations, are the ingredients for his extremely insightful and witty documentary essays. Kaya also works as a cameraman. In 2017, he took over the camera work on the investigative film 77sqm_9:26min by the London-based group Forensic Architecture about the reconstruction of the NSU murder of Halit Yozgat. The film premiered at documenta 14 in the same year.
Cem Kaya is a fellow of the Tarabya Cultural Academy from October 2023 to January 2024.