Biography

Talal is a director, producer and writer. Born in Damascus of Kurdish descent, Derki studied film directing in Athens at Stavrako High Institute of Cinematographic Art and Television and graduated in 2003. He worked as an assistant director for feature films before he made his first feature documentary "Return to Homs" in 2013 that won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance Film Festival. Thereafter he made "Of Fathers and Sons" that won the same award at Sundance and was Oscar nominated in 2019. With this film, he won the four most important German Film Awards in 2018 and 2019: SWR Documentary Film Prize, Munich Documentary Award, The Peace Bridge Award and Lola for Best Documentary. The last two films he produced premiered at Berlinale ("Under the Sky of Damascus") and Venice film festival ("Hollywoodgate") in 2023 and received several awards at international festivals. He has been a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Oscars) since 2019.
- IMDb mini biography by: Salma

Talal Derki was nominated for a 2019 Academy Award in the Best Documentary (Feature) category for his work on Of Fathers and Sons (2017) but lost to Jimmy Chin & Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi for Free Solo (2018).