Mehmet Aktaş

Iğdır, Turkey

Mehmet Aktaş is a Kurdish filmmaker, producer, author and journalist born in Turkey but living in Germany. He is founder and chief executive of the film production and distribution company mîtosfilm in Berlin.

In the middle of the 1990s Aktaş came to Germany after he had finished his studies at law school in Istanbul. In Germany he was wondering because as well the German people as the institutions disregarded Near Eastern cinema, especially the Kurdish cinema. Therefore, he founded the first Kurdish Film Festival in Germany in 2002 which has been supported by the "Hauptstadtkulturfonds".

With Mîtosfilm Aktaş produced feature films like Close up Kurdistan (2007) directed by Yüksel Yavuz, Land of Legend (2008) directed by Rahim Zabihi, and Après la Chute (2009) directed by Hiner Saleem. In 2009 Mehmet Aktaş was successful as producer of No One knows about Persian Cats directed by Bahman Ghobadi which was honored at the Film Festival Cannes with the award Un Certain Regard.

Mîtosfilm also functions as filmdistribution, focusing on new Turkish, Kurdish, Iraqi and Iranian auteur cinema. Since 2004 Mîtosfilm has also released films in German cinemas: Turtles can fly (2004), Two Girls from Istanbul (2005), Süt (2008) and Min dît (2010). These films illustrate Aktaş' political aspiration of giving a more authentic image of the life in the Near East than the local news.

Mehmet Aktaş also wrote the screenplay for Hisham Zaman's second feature film Letter to the King (2014) which received the Dragon Award for Best Nordic Film at Goteborg Film Festival 2014. Mîtosfilm's latest production Memories on Stone (2014) directed by Shawkat Amin Korki and written by Mehmet Aktaş and Korki was awarded at Abu Dhabi Film Festival 2014 as Best Film from the Arab World. Korki won the prize as "Best Director" at Cinedays Skopje – 13th Festival of European Film. "Memories on Stone" was released in Swiss cinema-theaters by the prestigious distributor Trigon Film in November 2014.

Since 2011 Aktaş is also artistic director for the Duhok International Film Festival.