Eris Akman

So, this guy—born December 17, 1947, in some tiny Turkish village not far from where Troy's ruins still bake in the sun—kind of lived a life that’s straight out of a movie anyway. He went through school at Kadikoy Maarif College and then, probably on a whim (or maybe just chasing something bigger), packed off to London to get into drama at Mountview. Stage stuff at first, taking in all the greasepaint and late-night rehearsals, but he wasn’t really satisfied with just standing under the spotlights. After a gig with the legendary Yilmaz Guney—seriously, that’s a big name—he decided acting was cool and all, but he wanted to get his hands dirty behind the scenes. So, he started cranking out screenplays and producing films, always with one eye on the director’s chair. He wanted to call the shots, literally. Even though the UK became his main base, he wasn’t just sticking to British projects. There’s a sort of wanderlust in his filmography—he’d jump on international shoots, but didn’t drop his Turkish roots either. The guy’s career is this weird, fascinating blend of East and West, indie and mainstream, chaos and precision. He basically built a bridge from a dusty village near Troy all the way to the global cinema scene, and he didn’t bother asking for permission. That’s the kind of life story you don’t see every day.