Ferhat Kaplan

Ferhat Kaplan, born in the south of The Netherlands, is a self-taught actor and creator who made a radical career shift in 2020. He left the world of marketing behind to fully commit to the stage and screen. Since then, he has quickly emerged as a striking new voice within the Dutch film and theatre landscape. His work is defined by raw emotional honesty, social consciousness, and a deep exploration of identity, heritage, and humanity.

Over the past four years, he has acted in quite a few films. Ranging from leading roles in award-nominated shorts to impactful supporting parts in large-scale productions for, among others, BNNVARA and Netflix. In 2024, he was nominated for a Shortcutz Amsterdam Award for Best Actor and received a Netherlands Film Fund Short grant for his debut as a screenwriter.

Ferhat is a hybrid storyteller: not only an actor but a writer and developer of narratives that emerge from personal urgency. As an Alevi Dutchman with roots in both Brabant and Anatolia, he explores themes such as mental health, religion, masculinity, and invisibility always with nuance, never didactic.

His style is intimate, direct, and visual, with an emphasis on truthfulness over spectacle. He believes in telling the stories he needed himself growing up, stories that resonate emotionally and intellectually.