Who is Celik Kayalar?
Çelik Kayalar, PhD. has been making home-movies since the age of 10 with his brother Cemal Kayalar in Ankara where he grew up.
In the USA, in addition to Biochemistry, he studied Film Directing, Writing, Cinematography, Editing and Acting, mainly at the UCLA-Film Department’s Extension School (while he was a Faculty in UCLA’s Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Departments).
Çelik completed many classes and workshops at various schools while making numerous short-films.
He also wrote, directed and acted in the comedic “COUCH”, a theatrical-play that had a long and successful run in San Francisco, then in Los Angeles.
His feature-film (105 min) was MOONLIGHT SONATA which played in 14 film-festivals and won accolades and prestigious awards during 2009-2011.
Many award-winning short-films followed to this day. To mention a few:
99%, CLOSING, UNMASKED, DNA, THE NEW GIRLFRIEND, NOW IN AMERICA, THE SADIST and IMAGINE-1619.
His comedic WebSeries AGENTS TO THE MAX is currently playing on the Internet.
Çelik likes to cast his own students from the school he founded and owns in Berkeley: FABA, FilmActingBayArea.com.
FABA recently was chosen as the BEST Film-Acting School in California, by the organization LUXliving, in 2023.