Sebastian Marka

Sebastian Marka was born in Geneva in 1978 and grew up in Königsbach-Stein near Karlsruhe. After completing his Zivildienst (alternative civilian service), Marka began studying at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg in 2001 and graduated in 2005 with a degree in Film & Media.[1]

While still being a student, Marka began working as a film editor. He edited commercials, short- and feature films. After graduating, he continued his editing work and was responsible for editing several Television productions such as Unschuldig or 100 Code, an internationally co-produced Swedish crime drama series.

In 2010 Marka's short film - thriller Interview[2] was released, for which he received many awards at German and international film festivals.

Due to the success of his short film Interview he received his first directing assignments. After directing five episodes of the German TV series Notruf Hafenkante, Marka subsequently shot ten 90-minute episodes of the popular German police crime drama series Tatort since 2013, three of which he edited himself. The released Tatort-episodes were almost all praised by the German press and received good IMDb ratings. For example, the German film critic Rainer Tittelbach wrote in October 2018, that Marka had created "exceptional crime films" (Ausnahmekrimis).[3] Spiegel Online - critic Christian Buß also wrote in a 2018 Tatort - review, that that Marka had "repeatedly artfully widened the format of the series with cinematic 'Tatort-episodes' such as the Berlin episode 'Meta' or the 'Se7en' variation" for the Frankfurt Tatort edition (hat mit cineastischen "Tatorten" wie der Berliner Folge "Meta" oder der "Se7en"-Variation [...] immer wieder kunstvoll das Format der Reihe geweitet).[4] In addition, some of the Tatort - episodes won national and international awards. For example, the episode Long Live Death celebrated its international premiere at the Austin Film Festival in 2016. And Marka won an audience award for it at the Nashville Film Festival in 2017 and received a jury award at the Garden State Film Festival in 2017. For the Tatort-episode Die Wahrheit Marka and screenwriter Erol Yesilkaya were nominated for the prestigious Grimme Award in 2017. They received the Grimme Award in 2019 for their Tatort-episode Meta.

The award-winning three Tatort-episodes and three other episodes were created in collaboration with Erol Yesilkaya. He wrote the screenplays for all six episodes. Marka had met Yesilkaya in 2012 and worked together nine times so far. In an interview with the German trade magazine Blickpunkt:Film, Marka compares their cooperation to the "showrunner - principle". During the process of making a film, from idea development to film editing, Yesilkaya and Marka would be in constant exchange of information to achieve a good result.[5]

On October 20, 2020, Marka's dystopian TV - Science fiction film Exit was broadcast on the nationwide German television channel Das Erste. Yesilkaya again wrote the screenplay for the film. The German film critic Arno Frank of Spiegel Online said, that a "perfectly formed dystopia like "Exit" [...] has not yet been seen on public television" in Germany. (Eine formvollendete Dystopie wie "Exit" [...] hat man bei den Öffentlich-Rechtlichen noch nicht gesehen.)[6]

It was announced in the press on February 2, 2021, that Marka and Yesilkaya are to film the German fantasy novel - bestseller The Gryphon (Der Greif, 1989) by Wolfgang Hohlbein as a series for Amazon Prime Video in the same year.[7][8]

Buenos Aires Rojo Sangre (Argentina) 2010

• Prize Mejor Director Cortometraje (Best Short Film - Director) in the category Sección De Cortometrajes (Short Film Section) for Sebastian Marka

Indie Fest (USA) 2010

• Award of Merit in the category short film for Sebastian Marka

Oaxaca FilmFest (Mexico) 2010

• Prize Best short film for Sebastian Marka

Celluloid Screams: Sheffield Horror Film Festival (England) 2011

• Prize Best Short Film for Sebastian Marka

FEC Festival (European Short Film Festival) (Spain) 2011

• Audience Award in the category European Competition for Sebastian Marka

Filmfestival Max Ophüls Preis (Germany) 2011

• Nomination for the Short Film Award for Sebastian Marka

Oldenburg International Film Festival (Germany) 2011

• Nomination for the German Independence Award – Bester Kurzfilm (German Independence Award – Best Short film) for Sebastian Marka

Seattle International Film Festival (USA) 2011

• Nomination for the Golden Space Needle Award in the category Best Short Film for Sebastian Marka

Miami Short Film Festival (USA) 2012

• Prize Best Narrative for Sebastian Marka

Newport Beach Film Festival (USA) 2012

• Prize Best Narrative Short for Sebastian Marka

Pentedattilo Film Festival (Italy) 2012

• Prize Best Short in the category Thriller for Sebastian Marka

Festival des deutschen Films (Germany) 2016

• Nomination for the Ludwigshafener Filmkunstpreis in the category Best German Film for Long Live Death

Garden State Film Festival 2017

• Festival Award in the category International Narrative Feature for Long Live Death

Grimme-Preis 2017

• Nomination for the Grimme-Preis (Grimme-Award) for Erol Yesilkaya (Screenplay) and Sebastian Marka (Director) in the category Fiction for Tatort: Die Wahrheit

Nashville Film Festival 2017

• Audience award in the category Episodic Competition / Long Form for Long Live Death

Grimme-Preis 2019

• Grimme-Preis (Grimme-Award) for Erol Yesilkaya (Screenplay) and Sebastian Marka (Director) in the category Outstanding Individual Achievement - Fiction for Tatort: Meta

• Sebastian Marka at IMDb
• Sebastian Marka at Filmportal.de