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İlker Çatak

İlker Çatak was born in Berlin in 1984 and later lived in Istanbul where he completed high school. İlker studied Film Directing in Berlin and Hamburg, graduating in 2014 at Hamburg Media School. His graduation film SADAKAT received many international awards before winning the Student Academy Award in Gold in 2015. İlker’s first feature film, ONCE UPON A TIME INDIANERLAND debuted in 2017 and is an adaptation of the award-winning youth novel ‘Es war einmal Indianerland’ by Nils Mohl. İlker’s second feature film I WAS, I AM, I WILL BE (2019) received the Bronze Lola at the German Film Awards. His feature film STAMBUL GARDEN was released in Germany in autumn 2021 and also selected at the German Film Awards. İlker’s other projects include directing an episode on the TV show TATORT. His latest film THE TEACHERS' LOUNGE had its world premiere at the 73. Berlin Film Festival.

Johannes Duncker

Born 1983, Johannes grew up in rural Germany and Istanbul as son of a protestant ministerial family. He studied in Cologne and Rome and graduated in theatre, film and television studies as well as English literature and history with a master's thesis on the aesthetics of digital film. Johannes has written and directed numerous internationally awarded short films. He currently works as a freelance filmmaker and is the director of KFFK/Shortfilm Festival Cologne. The film THE TEACHERS' LOUNGE based on his first feature length screenplay (co-written with İlker Çatak) had its world premiere at the 73. Berlin Film Festival and won five Lolas including "Best Screenplay" at the German Film awards. The screenplay has been published by Reclam Verlag in May 2023. In January 2024 the film was nominated as "Best International Film" at the Academy Awards.