Tolga Karaçelik

Tolga Karaçelik — Biography

Tolga Karaçelik is a festival-awarded Turkish film director and screenwriter. With Butterflies (Kelebekler) he won the World Cinema Dramatic Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 2018, and with his black comedy Psycho Therapy (Saykoterapi), starring Steve Buscemi, he took the audience award at Tribeca. In June 2026 he announced that shooting had also begun on his new film.

Born in Istanbul, he graduated from Koç Private High School and Marmara University Law School, but chose cinema over law and studied film in New York. His first feature, Gişe Memuru (Toll Booth), won him best first film at the Golden Orange and the grand prize at the Mannheim Turkish Film Festival. Around the same time he also appeared as an actor in Kurtuluş Son Durak, playing Okan. With Sarmaşık (Ivy) he won best film, director and screenplay at the Antalya Film Festival, best director at the Adana Golden Boll, and best film at the East End Film Festival.

His later films include Bebek İşi, Kelebekler and Yakamoz S-245; for Kelebekler he was named director of the year by GQ and won best director at the 25th Adana Film Festival. Saykoterapi returned to cinemas in autumn 2025. He married in 2018.