Director, novelist, screenwriter & playwright Adnan G. Köse, a member of the German and European Film Academies, comes from a German-Turkish family of miners from Lohberg on the Lower Rhine. He was not really enthusiastic about his father's hard work "underground" at Lohberg Colliery, even though he still pays great respect to it today and has made a documentary film ("Die Siedlung") as a tribute to the workers' settlement where he grew up. It was clear to him early on that he did not want to become a miner, but a writer. He began writing at the age of seven, and his first short stories were promoted at school and published in regional daily newspapers when he was not yet ten. Subsequently, however, he became more interested in acting, and only returned to literature much later. After a very short time at the Lohberg mine, which was due to the family mining tradition, he decided to finally make his childhood dream come true. He caught up on his A-levels via the second educational path and studied German, history and American studies in Duisburg. After changing his studies, however, he took his diploma at the renowned drama school "Theater Der Keller" in Cologne.
Between nationwide theatre engagements as an actor and theatre director in Oberhausen, Cologne, Aachen, Hamburg and Celle, among others, he trained as a screenwriter, film director and photographer in Germany and the USA and made his screenwriting debut in 1999 with the ARD-ARTE road movie "Mein Freund Balou" (My Big Friend) starring Günter Lamprecht and Hannelore Elsner (German Television Award 1999 / Best Cinematography). He was awarded the North Rhine-Westphalia Screenplay Prize for his cinema screenplay "Dreizehn".
His first short feature film as a film director, "Zur Hölle mit dir" (To Hell with You), funded by FFF Bayern and Kuratorium Junger Deutscher Film, earned him an offer in 2006 for his debut film "Lauf um dein Leben - Vom Junkie zum Ironman" (Run for Your Life - From Junkie to Ironman) starring Uwe Ochsenknecht and Max Riemelt, which, like all his previous feature films, was released by Studiocanal.
After working as an actor, director, author, dubbing artist and creative producer for cinema ("Kleine Morde", "Homies", "EneMe") and TV ("Bis in die Spitzen"), he made his debut as a playwright with the miners' drama "Unter Tage", published by Rowohlt Verlag. The play was the theatre opening event of RUHR 2010 and became a Ruhr classic. In 2015, he was commissioned by the Kammerphilharmonie Bremen to develop the opera "Sehnsucht nach Isfahan" (Longing for Isfahan) and made his debut as a librettist with it. He also took on the narrator's role in this Handel opera about the famous "Medicus". The opera "Sehnsucht nach Isfahan" was awarded various prizes, including the "German Engagement Prize".
With the Dakota International Theatre he won the 1st prize "Virtual Cultural Capital of Germany" in 2021 as artistic director and director in the midst of the pandemic for the world premiere of his play "Red March". The play, published by Hartmann & Stauffacher and starring Dieter Landuris and Anis Jusovic, was funded by the LVR, the RVR, the RAG Foundation and within the framework of Neustart Kultur, among others; the production partner was the UNESCO World Heritage Zollverein (www.roter-maerz.de). Adnan G. Köse was awarded the Heimatpreis NRW for "Roter März" in December 2021. One year later, he staged the German premiere of "Himmelweg" by Juan Mayorga, one of Spain's leading playwrights, starring Gottfried Thoma. The manuscripts of his radio plays "Roter März" (based on his play of the same name about the Ruhr Revolution) and "Glückauf, Almanya", in which he tells the dramatic story of his German-Turkish parents in the 1960s during the so-called "Gastarbeiter-Anwerbeabkommen" (guest worker recruitment agreement), were funded by the Film- und Medienstiftung NRW as part of its radio play funding.
For his own production company "New Dakota Independent Film & Theater Production", Adnan G. Köse has been producing plays, short fiction films and documentaries since 2014, including the previously funded cinema documentaries "Letzte Zuflucht", "Die Siedlung" and, in collaboration with Thorsten Ippendorf ("Ippi Film"), the documentary "Ennatz - Eine Zebralegende" (Ennatz - A Zebra Legend) about the legendary MSV football star and ex-national player Bernard Dietz.
In 2024, Adnan G. Köse is planning the literary adaptation "Wie der Soldat das Grammofon repariert" (How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone), based on the bestseller by German Book Prize winner Sasa Stanisic, in Bosnia, Austria and Germany as screenwriter, director and co-producer. The cinema project has so far been funded by the FFA and Creative Europe and is currently in financing.
Other cinema film projects include, among others. the development of the screenplays "The Grace of God", based on the impressive life story of animal rights activist and ex- GFVA World Champion in Free Fight Ralf Seeger ("Harte Hunde"), as well as "Handel's Resurrection", a historical film about the legendary musician and baroque composer Georg Friedrich Händel.
"Ein Freund von Früher" is his first novel.
He is planning a sequel with Wolfgang Lohmeier if it is successful, as well as various joint film projects.
Read more
Read less
