Tuncel Kurtiz

Acting

Tuncel Kurtiz

Born 1936-02-01 · Bilecik, Turkey

Tuncel Tayanç Kurtiz (1 February 1936 – 27 September 2013) was a Turkish theatre, movie and TV series actor, playwright, and film director Since 1964, he acted in more than 70 movies, including many international productions. Since 1958, Kurtiz performed on many stages in Istanbul, in state and private theatres. He was also on the stage at Gothenburg City Theatre, Stockholm Royal Theatre and Swedish Theatre in Sweden, Schaubühne Berlin, Frankfurt City Theatre and Hamburg City Theatre in Germany and at Peter Brook Shakespeare Royal Theatre in England. Kurtiz directed plays for the German-Turkish theatre project "Türkisches Ensemble" in the late 1970s. During his university years and later the military service period, he became friends with the renowned film director Yılmaz Güney. They made a number of films together. Their 1970 film Umut was prohibited to leave Turkey, but was shown in Cannes Film Festival by a smuggled copy. His first film role was in Şeytanın Uşakları, shot in 1964. Since then, Tuncel Kurtiz played also in many international productions like Swedish, German, Dutch, Italian, French, British, Israel and Indian films and TV series, mostly in the original language.

Acting credits

Işıklar Sönmesin poster
6.0

The struggle of Seydo, whom he was assigned to go with lieutenant Murat, in the tough geography of the Southeast Anatolia.

Işıklar Sönmesin

1996

The Bus poster
6.6

A group of illegal immigrants are brought to Stockholm in a bus by a smuggler who takes all their money and passports, and then runs away.

The Bus

1974

The Last Birds poster
6.3

A love story begins in an Istanbul bookstore. A young engineer meets a schoolgirl in her final year of studies. He follows her to her home. The next day, he looks again for her, and again and again. Slowly, he overcomes her shyness to win her affection, and finally her love.

The Last Birds

1965

Somersault in a Coffin poster
7.4

Mahsun Supertitiz is an unemployed homeless man who steals cars at night so that he can sleep in a heated place during the winter. Mahsun lives in Rumelihisar, an old section of Istanbul, and makes ends meet by getting the local fishermen to help him. Mahsun loves the cars he robs, cleans and polishes them, and drives them through the streets of Rumelihisar during the daytime.

Somersault in a Coffin

1996

Jack Hunter and the Quest for Akhenaten's Tomb poster
6.2

Adventurer Jack Hunter sets off in pursuit of a legendary tomb, meeting dangerous old adversaries, and even more dangerous old flames, along the way.

Jack Hunter and the Quest for Akhenaten's Tomb

2008

Law of the Border poster
6.2

In Deliviran, a village near Urfa close to the Syrian border, Hidir’s chief is involved in smuggling and gets shot. Hidir tries to stay out of illegal activities but circumstances contrive to push him in the opposite direction until he accepts to take a herd of sheep across the border.

Law of the Border

1966

Krallar Ölmez poster
8.0

Loosely based on "The Girl Hunters" written by Mickey Spillane. After many years on a drunken binge over the disappearance of his love, Murat (Ayhan Isik) is picked up out of the gutter by the police and dropped smack-dab in the middle of a political bombshell.

Krallar Ölmez

1967

Kanal poster
6.4

Based on real events, this story traces a young district governor’s moral awakening as he confronts a powerful landowner in rural Adana. What begins as a routine bureaucratic act soon turns into a struggle to shield villagers from exploitation, greed, and the threat of malaria.

Kanal

1979

Hope poster
7.4

After losing one of his horses in an accident, an illiterate horse cab driver sets out into the desert in a quest for a mythical lost treasure.

Hope

1970

The Edge of Heaven poster
7.2

The lives of six German-Turkish immigrants are drawn together by circumstance: An old man and a prostitute forging a partnership, a young scholar reconciling his past, two young women falling in love, and a mother putting the shattered pieces of her life back together.

The Edge of Heaven

2007

No artwork available
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Baba

1994

Journey on a Clock Hand poster
5.8

A Turkish watchmaker is employed to mend a village clock that has not worked for some seven years. However, what seems like a simple and un-exciting task is plunged into a web of mystery and intrigue when the watchmaker innocently witnesses the murder of a beautiful woman on his first day in the village.

Journey on a Clock Hand

1997

The Smile of the Lamb poster
5.3

This Israeli-made film is set along the battle-torn West Bank. Military governor Makram Khouri tries to flush out some fugitive PLO activists by hanging the rotting, stinking carcass of a dead donkey in a village square. Israeli doctor Rami Danon forgets his animosity towards the PLO and, out of compassion, cuts the carcass down. For disobeying Khouri's orders, Danon becomes as much a fugitive as the Palestinians. While in hiding, Danon befriends Arab hermit Tuncel Kurtiz, whose adopted son is a member of the PLO.

The Smile of the Lamb

1986

The Wall poster
7.2

Produced, written and directed by Yılmaz Güney within his own personal experiences of capital offense, he dedicates Duvar to male teenagers aged 13 to 19 living behind the bars under diabolical treatments. These teenagers get barbaric corporal punishments, injurious harrows, tortures and sexual abuses just for taking the responsibility of their destiny on a wrong turn.

The Wall

1983

The Lost Gift poster
NR

The Japanese Emperor Meiji wants Torajiro Yamada to bring a gift to the Ottoman Emperor Abdülhamid II. It is the symbol of the first diplomatic encounter between the two cultures. Torajiro Yamada's ship finally reaches the Aegean Sea after a long journey, but pirates attack the ship and steal the gift. Janissary Orhan and samurai Yamada start their bloody quest upon finding that on Ottoman soil.

The Lost Gift

2010

Tales of Intransigence poster
6.4

The story of rivalry between two forms of winter transport: the horse-drawn sleigh which can take the short cut over the frozen lake and the red minibus which needs to be more devious to beat its rival. While the race goes on other tales of intransigence are told in this land of bards and minstrels.

Tales of Intransigence

2004

Sokaklar Yanıyor poster
7.0

No synopsis available yet.

Sokaklar Yanıyor

1965

The Guardian Angel poster
5.4

An unspecified European country ca 1912 in the throws of political upheaval. A man only dressed in black (Jacob, played by Philip Zandén) is hired to assassinate the Interior Minister Joel Birkman (Etienne Glaser) after a particular brutal strike down of a student protest. He takes up work as the minister's bodyguard at his summer residence, and get's entangled in the affairs and politics of the Birkman family.

The Guardian Angel

1990

Kanlı Meydan poster
8.0

No synopsis available yet.

Kanlı Meydan

1965

The Legend of the Ugly King poster
7.0

Director Hüseyin Tabak explores the legacy of Yilmaz Güney — political dissident, convicted murderer, and visionary Kurdish filmmaker — who directed the 1982 Palme d'Or–winning Yol from inside prison and died in exile just two years later.

The Legend of the Ugly King

2017

All Over the Place - A Portrait of Tuncel Kurtiz poster
5.5

Tuncel Kurtiz is an international actor who has worked in various countries such as Turkey, Germany, and Sweden throughout his fifty-year career. He has starred in countless works in cinema, stage and television and has received many awards, including the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. He has directed two documentaries and a feature-length fiction film. Kurtiz's acting performance ranges from popular melodramas to major plays such as Mahabharata (Peter Brook), encompassing many different genres and styles. As an actor, Kurtiz believes in the creative power of chaos: 'Chaos is the most difficult to create / Not a false chaos / Many things come out of chaos'. Through testimonies, film excerpts, and archive footage, this documentary reflects Tuncel Kurtiz's diverse body of artistic work in all its dimensions for the first time. In the background of this detailed portrait are Turkey's turbulent years and the reality of exile.

All Over the Place - A Portrait of Tuncel Kurtiz

2025

The Mahabharata poster
7.1

Jealousy and hatred is what separates the Pandavas and Kauravas. The Kauravas fear the Pandavas are after the throne of their father. Yudhishthira of the Pandavas gets told by the deity, Krishna, that he will become king. A war is inevitable.

The Mahabharata

1990

Kuduz Recep poster
9.0

The film tells the story of a gang leader who helps in the national struggle. Paşa receives gold from foreign powers in order to neutralize the National Forces. Meanwhile, Captain Murat, gang leader Kuduz Recep, and his men raid Paşa's house. They seize all the gold and set off for Ankara. Kuduz Recep says he cannot continue on the journey because he was wounded in the raid. He takes the gold and flees with his men. Captain Murat pursues Kuduz Recep and his men. Hamza, one of Recep's men, takes advantage of Recep's injury, ties him up, and throws him into the river. He hides the gold and takes over as the leader of the gang. Captain Murat finds Recep in the river and they begin searching for Hamza together. Captain Murat is killed during a clash with Hamza's men. Meanwhile, Recep finds Hamza and takes the gold. He will then set off to transport the gold to Ankara.

Kuduz Recep

1967

No artwork available
5.8

Kurdish expert Hiner Saleem (Shero) wrote and directed this French comedy-drama, set inside the 100,000-population Kurdish community in Paris. The original French title translates as "Long Live the Bride...and the Liberation of Kurdistan." Cheto (Georges Corraface) seeks a wife via videotapes while still seeing his French girlfriend, immigration office worker Christine (Stephanie Lagarde). Cheto places an order for a beautiful girl, but he's disappointed when her sister, country girl Mina (Marina Kobakhidze), arrives at the airport as a substitute. Family pressure forces him to marry her. Unhappy with the way she's treated by Cheto, Mina acquires some progressive notions from Leila (Schahla Aalam) and other local feminists, leading to confrontations with Cheto.

Vive la mariée... et la libération du Kurdistan

1998

Behind the camera