Sibel Kekilli Movies and Career Information

Sibel Kekilli (born 16 June 1980 in Heilbronn, West Germany) is a German actress of Turkish origin, who gained public attention after starring in the 2004 film Gegen die Wand (Head-On). She has twice won the highest German movie award Lola. Kekilli grew up in Heilbronn, the daughter of Turkish parents, who had come to Germany in 1977. She describes her parents as fairly liberal, allowing her to participate at school trips and to go without a headscarf. After leaving school at age 16, she worked for two years for the local city government, then moved to Essen, where she worked various jobs. One day in 2002 while at a Cologne shopping mall, she was noticed by a casting director, who called her up for an audition for a role in a movie. Sibel won the leading role for Fatih Akın's planned movie against a field of 350 other hopefuls. This movie Gegen die Wand (Head-On) was released in 2004 and was a major public success, receiving several prizes at film festivals. Kekilli underwent an appendectomy during the filming in Turkey. After the movie, she had a rhinoplasty. Shortly after the release of "Head-On", the German tabloid newspaper Bild-Zeitung revealed, in a sensationalist tone, that