In 2010 Marka's short film - thriller Interview[2] was released, for which he received many awards at German and international film festivals.
Due to the success of his short film Interview he received his first directing assignments. After directing five episodes of the German TV series Notruf Hafenkante, Marka subsequently shot ten 90-minute episodes of the popular German police crime drama seriesTatort since 2013, three of which he edited himself.
The award-winning three Tatort-episodes Long Live Death(Tatort: Es lebe der Tod) , Tatort: Die Wahrheit, Tatort: Meta and four other episodes were created in collaboration with Erol Yesilkaya. He wrote the screenplays for all seven episodes. Marka had met Yesilkaya in 2012 and worked with him frequently until then.
In an interview with the German trade magazine Blickpunkt:Film, Marka compares their cooperation to the "showrunner - principle". During the process of making a film, from idea development to film editing, Yesilkaya and Marka would be in constant exchange of information to achieve a good result.[3]
On October 20, 2020, Marka's dystopian TV - Science fiction filmExit was broadcast on the nationwide German television channel Das Erste. Yesilkaya again wrote the screenplay for the film, which is set in the year 2047 and addresses the dimension and impact of artificial intelligence and digital life. The German film critic Arno Frank of Spiegel Online said, that a "perfectly formed dystopia like "Exit" [...] has not yet been seen on public television" in Germany. (Eine formvollendete Dystopie wie "Exit" [...] hat man bei den Öffentlich-Rechtlichen noch nicht gesehen.)[4]
The released Tatort-episodes by Marka were almost all praised by the German press and received good IMDb ratings.
For example, the German film critic Rainer Tittelbach wrote in October 2018, that Marka had created "exceptional crime films" (Ausnahmekrimis).[6]
Spiegel Online - critic Christian Buß also wrote in a 2018 Tatort - review, that Marka had "repeatedly artfully widened the format of the series with cinematic 'Tatort-episodes' such as the Berlin episode 'Meta' or the 'Se7en' variation" for the Frankfurt Tatort edition (hat mit cineastischen "Tatorten" wie der Berliner Folge "Meta" oder der "Se7en"-Variation [...] immer wieder kunstvoll das Format der Reihe geweitet).[7]
For the Tatort-episode Die Wahrheit Marka and screenwriter Erol Yesilkaya were nominated for the prestigious Grimme Award in 2017. They received the Grimme Award in 2019 for their Tatort-episode Meta.
2010: Buenos Aires Rojo Sangre (Argentina) - Prize Mejor Director Cortometraje (Best Short Film - Director) in the category Sección De Cortometrajes (Short Film Section)
2010: Indie Fest (USA) - Award of Merit in the category short film
2011: Celluloid Screams: Sheffield Horror Film Festival (England) - Prize Best Short Film
2011: FEC Festival (European Short Film Festival) (Spain) - Audience Award in the category European Competition
2011: Filmfestival Max Ophüls Preis (Germany) - Nomination for the Short Film Award
2011: Oldenburg International Film Festival (Germany) - Nomination for the German Independence Award – Bester Kurzfilm (German Independence Award – Best Short film)
2017: Nomination for the Grimme-Preis (Grimme-Award) for Erol Yesilkaya (Screenplay) and Sebastian Marka (Director) in the category Fiction
Tatort: Meta
2019: Grimme-Preis (Grimme-Award) for Erol Yesilkaya (Screenplay) and Sebastian Marka (Director) in the category Outstanding Individual Achievement - Fiction
Referencesedit
^Profile of Sebastian Marka at his agency Above The Line. Retrieved February 2, 2021.
^Info about the short film Interview (2010) and short bio about Sebastian Marka on the ARD-website (in German). Retrieved February 2, 2021.
^Heine, Frank (October 28, 2020). "Yesilkaya/Marka: Nach dem Showrunner-Prinzip". Blickpunkt:Film (in German). Retrieved February 2, 2021.
^Frank, Arno (October 28, 2020). "Monopol auf die Realität - Sci-Fi-Drama in der ARD". Spiegel Online (in German). Retrieved February 2, 2021.
^Shuman, Sean (May 3, 2023). "Prime Video's The Gryphon: Plot, Cast, Release Date, and Everything Else We Know - An upcoming German fantasy epic will hit Prime Video. This is everything we know about The Gryphon". MovieWeb. Retrieved May 25, 2023.
^Tittelbach, Rainer (October 21, 2018). "Reihe "Tatort – KI"". tittelbach.tv (in German). Retrieved February 2, 2021.
^Buß, Christian (October 19, 2018). "Wer glaubt noch an die ungehackte Empfängnis? - "Tatort" über künstliche Intelligenz". Spiegel Online (in German). Retrieved February 2, 2021.