
Acting
Ercan Kesal
Born 1959-01-01 · Avanos, Nevsehir, Turkey
Ercan Kesal was born on 12 September 1959 in Avanos, Nevsehir, Turkey. He is an actor and writer, known for Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011), You Know Him (2020) and The Pit (2016). He has been married to Nazan Kesal since 2005.
Acting credits
7.4After serving time in prison for his brother's crime, a man warily reunites with family, finding hope and healing in a life-changing bond with his niece.
Abandoned Man
2025
5.0A coming storm after dog days dawns during a road trip to an island for a funeral. The deceased is buried in haste and a man makes a detour through Aegean Turkey. The funeral is eclipsed by a last wish.
Black Sun
2019
7.5A group of men set out in search of a dead body in the Anatolian steppes
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
2011
6.0Nihat, an introverted employee in a hospital cafeteria, is confused by Ayşe, a mysterious woman who just started working there as a dishwasher. Her obvious seductive approaches embarrass Nihat and make him nervous at the same time. Despite the rumors about her husband having been sentenced to many years in jail, Nihat reluctantly accepts Ayşe’s invitation to dinner at her house. This is the beginning of a strange and dangerous liaison. When Nihat discovers a picture of the woman’s husband and realizes that he looks astoundingly like him, the relation becomes even more toxic.
I Am Not Him
2013
5.3A wig-maker from Istanbul, who suffers from cancer, becomes obsessed with a woman who enters his shop one day.
Hair
2010
7.1A young man from rural Turkey arrives in Istanbul with dreams of working on a ship and stays with a cousin while he searches for work. Over time, the former’s struggles to find employment and the latter’s troubles and disappointments strain their relationship and living situation.
Distant
2002
6.9Three strangers with one thing in common — the same father — come to a Turkish village to bury him, and learn about him and each other.
Butterflies
2018
8.0In a village in Anatolia at the foothills of the mountains, a young man resists the domination of landlords and local gangs while striving to win back his wife's love and affection.
The Reeds
2025
5.8Ahmet, who had recently lost his wife and little daughter in a traffic accident while he was away with his lover, is a prominent person dealing with "head work". As someone who does not care for anybody and does not knuckle under anything, he moves on quite unaffected. Yet some things start to change in himself and his life without any apparent reason.
Nausea
2015
6.8A family battles against the odds to stay together when small lies grow into an extravagant cover-up. In order to avoid hardship and responsibilities that would otherwise be impossible to endure, the family chooses to ignore the truth, not to see, hear or talk about it. But does playing “Three Monkeys” invalidate the truth of its existence?
Three Monkeys
2008
6.0Xate is an ordinary woman from Midyat with eight children in tow. The only thing that sets her apart is her husband's job as Mayor of Midyat. Until, that is, an extraordinary day changes her life - and the lives of everyone else in Midyat. For the illiterate, uneducated Xate becomes Mayor of Midyat! While she takes on her mayoral duties much as she does those in her house, the infantile rivalry between her children in municipal matters leads to adventures that have the Midyat folk howling with laughter.
Government Woman
2013
6.5Basri, 55 year old, every day walks for miles along the tracks working as a railroad watchman. His nagging thought is finding his son. Eighteen years ago, while the boy was studying at the university in Istanbul, the police took him into custody for antigovernment activities. Then, he mysteriously disappeared.
Mold
2013
3.5A cab driver, a teahouse owner and an out-of-work journalist live in a down-at-heel suburb of Ankara. When the driver tells his friends tales of the murky and unlawful dealings of his passengers, they install a camera to record the passengers.
The Smell of Money
2018
6.0A young Vienna-based taxi driver of Turkish origin witnesses an extremely brutal murder. The perpetrator, a serial killer, makes eye contact with her; a deadly game of cat-and-mouse ensues.
Cold Hell
2017
6.3Questioning the suspicious death of his mother, a university professor and his enigmatic gardener descend into a hypnotic maze of mirrors and memories. As family secrets surface and painful truths emerge, they spiral toward a devastating reckoning with the darkness lurking within us all.
The Things You Kill
2025
6.0A young girl's bargaining with her father to marry whoever she wants will cause her family to reveal their hidden dirty laundry.
Kısmet
2020
6.0During his military service in 1990's Southeast Turkey, Ahmet experiences something that will haunt him for the rest of his life. In 2013, when the chaotic days of Gezi Park protests in Istanbul start, Ahmet learns he has a brain tumor. Just as the lines between truth and fiction, the dream and the reality start to get blurred for him, he meets Serap; the love of his life. But time is ticking and his painful past weighs down on him every day, suffocating him with the same question: Who is the child that plays hide and seek with him?
9,75
2020
NRIn some villages in Eastern Anatolia, there is a common belief: If someone is about to die, a smell develops in the house a few days before the death occurs. Villagers call this smell "meft". A girl raised with this belief, is about to whitewash a room in the house for her sick mother to rest in. As she enters the room, the girl encounters a smell.
Whitewash
2014
NRSince the dawn of time, humankind has struggled against harsh natural conditions. The drama of Şemsi, who is partially paralyzed and mentally ill, brings together three police officers on duty that night. Şemsi, who was removed from the municipal cultural center where he had gone to warm up, has lost his lower body reflexes and urinates and defecates without realizing it. The officers who took Şemsi into their car were forced to open the doors and windows due to the unpleasant odor, exposing themselves to the harshness of nature. As they searched from place to place throughout the night to find an official institution that could take Şemsi in, the officers found pieces of their own lives in his. The officers' nighttime ordeal with Şemsi would deeply affect them.
Eksi Bir
2017
6.5Accompanied by a ward, a prisoner travels to his hometown to reconnect with his daughter and make amends, but a tragic truth mars his journey.
Love Me Instead
2021
5.6Seven years before the first film, Xate, still living in her husband Aziz Veysel’s shadow, is about to become the region’s first female mayor when a routine morning send-off for Aziz turns explosive, reigniting the fierce rivalry between Xate and the power-hungry Faruk. Their conflict escalates further when there’s an unexpected call for snap elections.
Government Woman 2
2013
4.0A high school student, raised in a modern family, is taken to a gynecologist for a virginity test by her parents. The psychologically and physically traumatizing examination makes her realize she does not have control over her own body. She will do anything she can to take the control back.
Take a Deep Breath
2012
6.3Doctor Kemal is head of a private hospital, is ambitious and has the best intentions for the residents of Istanbul. He is the best candidate for mayor of the Beyoglu district – in his opinion. An opinion not shared by his sceptical ex-wife; nor by the voters who come to eat and drink at his expense; nor the party leader, who even after several meetings still thinks he's an architect rather than a doctor; not even his faithful chauffeur. The slogan 'the doctor has the cure' might be catchy, but the doctor has little clue how sick the climate of political nepotism really is.
You Know Him
2020
5.4The residents of a small town set between a stormy sea and an ominous forest are becoming insane. They are convinced that successive signs appearing in the town are indications of doomsday.
Sideway
2017
Behind the camera
7.5A group of men set out in search of a dead body in the Anatolian steppes
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
2011
6.8A family battles against the odds to stay together when small lies grow into an extravagant cover-up. In order to avoid hardship and responsibilities that would otherwise be impossible to endure, the family chooses to ignore the truth, not to see, hear or talk about it. But does playing “Three Monkeys” invalidate the truth of its existence?
Three Monkeys
2008
6.1May 22nd, 1963. Unhappy with the existing social and political situation in Turkey, a group of military officers has planned a coup d’état to take down the government in Ankara. Meanwhile in Istanbul, their conspirators have undertaken the vital mission of taking over the National Radio station and making a formal announcement about the coup. But nothing goes to plan. Faced with a number of obstacles, including a sudden rainstorm, the absence of the radio station technician, a betrayal, the lack of feedback from Ankara and their very own inefficiency, the conspirators scramble to keep their plan on track and announce the success of the coup – that is, if the coup in the capital has taken place at all.
The Announcement
2017
6.3Doctor Kemal is head of a private hospital, is ambitious and has the best intentions for the residents of Istanbul. He is the best candidate for mayor of the Beyoglu district – in his opinion. An opinion not shared by his sceptical ex-wife; nor by the voters who come to eat and drink at his expense; nor the party leader, who even after several meetings still thinks he's an architect rather than a doctor; not even his faithful chauffeur. The slogan 'the doctor has the cure' might be catchy, but the doctor has little clue how sick the climate of political nepotism really is.
You Know Him
2020
6.3Doctor Kemal is head of a private hospital, is ambitious and has the best intentions for the residents of Istanbul. He is the best candidate for mayor of the Beyoglu district – in his opinion. An opinion not shared by his sceptical ex-wife; nor by the voters who come to eat and drink at his expense; nor the party leader, who even after several meetings still thinks he's an architect rather than a doctor; not even his faithful chauffeur. The slogan 'the doctor has the cure' might be catchy, but the doctor has little clue how sick the climate of political nepotism really is.
You Know Him
2020
6.3Doctor Kemal is head of a private hospital, is ambitious and has the best intentions for the residents of Istanbul. He is the best candidate for mayor of the Beyoglu district – in his opinion. An opinion not shared by his sceptical ex-wife; nor by the voters who come to eat and drink at his expense; nor the party leader, who even after several meetings still thinks he's an architect rather than a doctor; not even his faithful chauffeur. The slogan 'the doctor has the cure' might be catchy, but the doctor has little clue how sick the climate of political nepotism really is.
You Know Him
2020
6.3The last 12 minutes of a young woman in a house on the edge of the city. The radical decision of a woman whose life was made a prison by tradition, violence and poverty...
Swing
2013
NRSet in the village of Çiçekpınar in Düzce, the film examines how agricultural labor changed from the 1930s to the 2000s and how the social structure of the village transformed. Before hazelnuts, the villagers of Çiçekpınar lived in a self-sufficient, cooperative, communal social structure. After hazelnuts, however, the community transitioned to a social structure where everyone was responsible for their own work and organized hierarchically. The documentary that tells the story of the transition from a miniature pre-capitalist society to capitalism, exploring how the children of the former laborers, now "bosses," treat their seasonal workers and many other situations.
After Hazelnut
2018
NRSet in the village of Çiçekpınar in Düzce, the film examines how agricultural labor changed from the 1930s to the 2000s and how the social structure of the village transformed. Before hazelnuts, the villagers of Çiçekpınar lived in a self-sufficient, cooperative, communal social structure. After hazelnuts, however, the community transitioned to a social structure where everyone was responsible for their own work and organized hierarchically. The documentary that tells the story of the transition from a miniature pre-capitalist society to capitalism, exploring how the children of the former laborers, now "bosses," treat their seasonal workers and many other situations.
After Hazelnut
2018
