Aylin Tezel

Aylin Tezel is a German actress, writer, and director born on November 29, 1983. She achieved widespread recognition through her leading film roles, particularly in Germany and at international film festivals. She gained major career breakthroughs with her performance in the film Almanya - Welcome to Germany and her award-winning starring role in Am Himmel der Tag, released in English as Breaking Horizons. In addition to her acting work, Tezel has expanded her career into writing and directing.

Tezel was born in Bünde, Germany, to a Turkish-born medical doctor father and a German nurse mother. She grew up as a middle child alongside an older sister and a younger brother in Sennestadt, a district of Bielefeld. Tezel began dancing at six years old and graduated from the Hans Ehrenberg academic high school. She later studied acting at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts in Berlin, leaving the school during her second year.

Her screen career began with a debut in the 2008 arthouse feature Innocence, followed by a central role in Oliver Kienle's film Stronger Than Blood. Tezel gained wide attention for her role in Yasemin Şamdereli's film Almanya - Welcome to Germany, which premiered at the 61st Berlin International Film Festival in 2011 and won the Deutscher Filmpreis. The film became a major success in German cinemas and was released in many countries. During Christmas 2011, she starred as Cinderella in the television film Aschenputtel and joined the cop series Tatort as young cop Nora Dalay.

Tezel starred in Irish director Shimmy Marcus's short film Rhinos in 2011, which premiered at the CFC Worldwide Short Film Festival in Toronto and received an Irish Film & Television Awards nomination in 2013. Her performance in Pola Beck's 2012 drama Breaking Horizons earned her the Best Actress Award at the 30th Torino Film Festival, while the film won Best Film in the German-language competition at the 8th Zurich Film Festival. That same year, she appeared in 3 Zimmer/Küche/Bad. Tezel later took voice lessons from Julia Wilson-Dickson in London to prepare for English-language roles.

Her subsequent feature films included lead roles in Marco Kreuzpaintner's 2014 release Coming In, the 2015 feature Macho Man, and Robert Manson's English-language debut feature Lost in the Living. In 2017, she played Polish resistance fighter Zosia in six episodes of the Canadian spy thriller series X Company. She also starred as flight attendant Gökce alongside Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the 2020 Amazon Studios thriller 7500.

In 2021, Tezel starred as Alex in the six-part ZDFneo miniseries Unbroken, which set streaming records on ZDF Mediathek. Moving into behind-the-camera roles, she wrote and directed the 2020 short film Phoenix. In 2023, Tezel released her feature directorial debut, the romantic drama Falling Into Place, which she also wrote and starred in alongside Chris Fulton. The film won the FIPRESCI Prize at the 27th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival and secured releases across several countries.