Yeşim
Ustaoğlu

Yesim Ustaoglu was born in 1960 in Sarikamis in Eastern Turkey. She studied Architecture, specialising in the restoration of buildings, at the University of Yildiz. After her studies she worked as an independent film journalist and also ran video-workshops. After four short films and her feature film debut “Iz” (“The Track”) in 1994, her second feature “Journey to the Sun” (1999) was very successful in German cinemas. The film calls for debate on the difficulties in understandings between Turks and Kurds.

Yesim Ustaoglu was a guest of the Artists-in-Berlin Programme in 2001. During this time, she developed the screenplay for her next feature film “Waiting for the Clouds” (2004) and established contacts with the film world in Berlin. The film, an international co-production between Turkey, Greece, France and Germany, was first presented at the International Film Festival in Berlin and tells the story of 60-year-old Ayshe, whose parents were orthodox Greeks killed during the expulsion of the Greek minority in the years 1916-23. Rather than following her brother into an orphanage, she let herself be adopted by a Turkish family as a child and thus hid her true identity for 50 years. Again, Yesim Ustaoglu has devoted herself to a political theme otherwise hushed up: the expulsion and annihilation of the Black Sea Greeks by the still young Turkish state. “Waiting for the Clouds” won the special prize from the jury at the 23rd Istanbul International Film Festival, as well as the award for the best actress. The film was shown in German cinemas and was selected as film of the month by the film magazine “epd” in December 2005.