Mehmet Kurtuluş is a German actor of Turkish descent. He is best known for his work with German director Fatih Akin

Fatih Akin

Fatih Akın is a German film director, screenwriter and producer of Turkish descent.- Personal life :Akın was born in 1973 in Hamburg to parents of Turkish ethnicity...

.

Biography

Mehmet Kurtuluş was born in Uşak

Usak

Uşak is a city in the interior part of the Aegean Region of Turkey. The city has a population of 180,414 and is the capital of Uşak Province. The mayor is Ali Erdoğan ....

 in Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

 and moved at the age of 18 months to Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 and grew up with his brother in Salzgitter

Salzgitter

Salzgitter is an independent city in southeast Lower Saxony, Germany, located between Hildesheim and Braunschweig. Together with Wolfsburg and Braunschweig, Salzgitter is one of the seven Oberzentren of Lower Saxony...

, Lower Saxony

Lower Saxony

Lower Saxony is a German state situated in north-western Germany and is second in area and fourth in population among the sixteen states of Germany...

. His brother Tekin is also an actor. While at the Gymnasium am Fredenberg highschool, he had success with the school's theater group. After graduating in 1991, he completed his formation at the national German theater Braunschweig

Braunschweig

Braunschweig , is a city of 247,400 people, located in the federal-state of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is located north of the Harz mountains at the farthest navigable point of the Oker river, which connects to the North Sea via the rivers Aller and Weser....

. His first débuts took place in 1994 and 1995, with Komödie am Winterhuder Fährhaus in Hamburg

Hamburg

-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

, as well as with Theater am Kurfürstendamm in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

.

He performed several minor television roles in episodes of different TV shows and continued working in theater until his big-screen début in his main role as the young Turkish boy Gabriel in Fatih Akin's film Kurz und schmerzlos (Short Sharp Shock

Short Sharp Shock (film)

Short Sharp Shock is an award-winning 1998 film directed by Turkish-German director Fatih Akın.The film, which according to Rekin Teksoy, writing in Turkish Cinema, "focuses on the identity crises faced by German youth from various ethnic backgrounds," was the feature debut of the German-born...

). After his breakthrough he appeared in the successful TV mini-series Der Tunnel, of Roland Suso Richter

Roland Suso Richter

Roland Suso Richter is a German film director and producer.He also worked as a screenwriter and actor before settling for directing.- Biography :...

, were he performed alongside Heino Ferch and Nicolette Krebitz. Doris Dörrie

Doris Dörrie

Doris Dörrie is a German film director, producer and author.-Life and work:Dörrie completed her secondary education at a humanist Gymnasium. In 1973 she began a two-year attendance in film studies, in the drama department of the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California. She then studied...

 chose him for her sex comedy Naked. He went back to working in television with the love film Eine Liebe in Saigon (Love in Saigon) with Luxembourgian actress Désirée Nosbusch

Désirée Nosbusch

Désirée Nosbusch is a television presenter and actress. She was born in Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg, and has one Luxembourgish parent and one Italian parent. In the 1980s she lived in Manhattan in New York City, and from the 1990s to 2008 she lived in Los Angeles, California.Nosbusch speaks...

.

Kurtulus lives in Berlin at the moment.

Television

• 1993 - Adelheid und ihre Mörder
• 1995 - SK Babies
• 1995 - Stars of the South
• 1996 - Double Employment
• 2001 - The Tunnel (TV mini-series)
• 2004 - Love in Saigon

Cinema

• 1998 - Short Sharp Shock
  Short Sharp Shock (film)
  Short Sharp Shock is an award-winning 1998 film directed by Turkish-German director Fatih Akın.The film, which according to Rekin Teksoy, writing in Turkish Cinema, "focuses on the identity crises faced by German youth from various ethnic backgrounds," was the feature debut of the German-born...
  
   (German: Kurz und schmerzlos)
• 2000 - In July
  In July
  In July may refer to:* Im Juli , a 2000 German film* "Frozen Peas", alternatively titled "In July", a blooper audio recording of Orson Welles...
  
  (German: Im Juli.)
• 2001 - Herz
• 2002 - Naked
• 2004 - Lautlos
• 2004 - Head-On
  Head-On
  Head-On is a 2004 film written and directed by Fatih Akın.-Synopsis:Cahit Tomruk is a Turkish German in his 40s. He has given up on life after the death of his wife and seeks solace in cocaine and alcohol. One night, he intentionally drives his car head-on into a wall, and barely survives...
  
  (German: Gegen die Wand)

Awards

• International Film Festival of Locarno 1998: Bronze leopard (best actor) for Short Sharp Shock
• Adolf Grimme award 1998: Short Sharp Shock

External links

• Mehmet Kurtuluş in the Internet Movie Database
• Literature of and about Mehmet Kurtuluş in the catalog of the German National Library