Aylin Tezel

Aylin Tezel, a German actress who also writes and directs, was born in Bünde and grew up in Sennestadt. She studied acting at Berlin's Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts, leaving in her second year, and made her first screen appearance in the 2008 feature Innocence. A central part in Oliver Kienle's Stronger Than Blood followed, then her breakthrough as the lead of Almanya: Welcome to Germany (2011), which premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival and won the German Film Award. She took the Best Actress prize at the Torino Film Festival in 2012 for Breaking Horizons and became a recurring face on the cop series Tatort. Later work includes the female lead in Macho Man (2015), the thriller 7500 (2019), the miniseries Unbroken, the short Phoenix, which she wrote and directed, and her feature directing debut Falling Into Place (2023), which won the FIPRESCI prize at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.