Career
Sarıbacak began his acting career in theatre before transitioning to film and television in the early 2000s.
He gained national attention with his leading role in Wrong Rosary (Uzak İhtimal, 2009), which won the Tiger Award at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. His performance was widely praised for its understated emotional depth. He later appeared in Toll Booth (2010) and in Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Palme d’Or–winning Winter Sleep (2014).
In 2015, he won the award for Best Actor at the 49th Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival for his work in Tolga Karaçelik’s Ivy (Sarmaşık). In his acceptance speech, Sarıbacak expressed solidarity with all those involved in the making of the film, irrespective of nationality. This was perceived by the television broadcasting channel as an indirect criticism of government policies, and his speech was censored.
The incident was also noted internationally. Time reported that his speech was cut off by the pro-government broadcaster after he stated, “I am concerned about my country.”
He later starred in Leylak (2021), which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and received a Special Jury Mention for Best Narrative Short.
In 2025, Sarıbacak made his directorial debut with Gazelle, co-directed with Samy Pioneer. The film premiered in the Vanguard section of the Vancouver International Film Festival and later screened at the Chicago International Film Festival. The film also had its East Coast premiere at the Dances With Films New York festival.
Themes and ideas
In an interview discussing censorship in contemporary Turkey, Sarıbacak remarked, “We live in a state in which we fear words.”
Speaking about his craft, he has described acting as “carefully removing each layer of a character,” and admitted that success sometimes frightens him because “as I succeed, I feel I lose the chance to make mistakes … sometimes this scares me very much.”
Directors have praised his minimalism and authenticity. On Leylak, collaborators noted that “less is more; his body language and actions are stronger than words. His performances radiate such realism you hold your breath.”
As a filmmaker, he has framed Gazelle as a psychological drama of separation, resilience, and the fragile terrain of the human mind, drawing directly from lived experiences of exile and displacement. The Vancouver International Film Festival described the film as “a raw and timely record of the profound distress of displacement.”
Personal life
Sarıbacak was born in Ankara. He received his bachelor's degree in Turkish Language Teaching from Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University in 2000. Before pursuing acting full-time, he worked as a teacher to satisfy family expectations, then resigned and enrolled at Akademi İstanbul to study acting. He later completed the Advanced Acting Master Program at Bahçeşehir University in 2006. He relocated to New Jersey, where he continues to live and work.
