About

Sibel Kekilli (born 1980) is a German actress of Turkish origin. She gained widespread recognition for her film debut in 'Gegen die Wand (Head On)' in 2004. She won the German Film Award for Best Actress for her roles in both ‘Gegen die Wand’ and ‘Die Fremde (When We Leave)’. The portrayal of Shae in the HBO hit series Game of Thrones brought her even more international attention.

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Sibel Kekilli's career really took off in 2002 when she got the chance to audition for Fatih Akin's award-winning film 'Gegen die Wand' - which not only meant his but also her breakthrough. The film won the Golden Bear at the Berlinale 2004, and Sibel has received several national and international awards for her acting, including the German Film Award in 2004.

Since then, she starred in a lot of feature films, both national and international. Some of them include 'Eve Dönüş (Homecoming, 2006)', with which she won Best Actress at the Antalya Film Festival, the multi-award-winning film 'Winterreise (Winter Journey)' (2006) with Josef Bierbichler and Hanna Schygulla, and Feo Aladag's 'Die Fremde (When We Leave' in 2010. In this movie, Sibel plays Umay, a young German Kurd who flees to Germany in order to escape her conservative and violent husband and at the same time give her son a better life with her old family. The film was her second worldwide hit, and Sibel won the Best Actress Award at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York and again at the German Film Awards among many others.

She's also had roles in other films, like the 2011 comedy 'What a Man' with Matthias Schweighöfer. From 2010 to 2017, Sibel was an investigator in the German prestigious series 'Tatort' Kiel and she's been on the award-winning HBO series "Game of Thrones" since the very first season. More recently she appeared in 'Fuchs im Bau' from Arman T. Riahi, 'Karanlik Gece" from Turkish director Özcan Alper and starred in 'Yunan' from the young director Ameer Fakher Eldin which entered the official compettion of the Berlinale 2025.