 After graduating in 1992, he worked in cinema and television as an assistant director to Orhan Oğuz, Mahinur Ergun, Filiz Kaynak and Yusuf Kurçenli, and was awarded first prize by IFSAK for his short film "Play Me Old and Wise" (1998).He wrote and directed the TV series "Good Morning Brother Istanbul" (1998–2001) on atv, and the TV film "Strawberry Cake" (2000) before achieving some early success with his first feature film, "Wish Me Luck" (2001), which Rekin Teksoy describes as ""unremarkable"", and collaborations with Mahinur Ergun on the hit TV series "Şaşıfelek Çıkmazı" (2001) for TRT, and "Asmalı Konak" (2002–2004) for atv, for which he received numerous awards.A period of great success followed with popular TV series "Çemberimde Gül Oya" (2004–2005) on Kanal D, and hit films "Everything About Mustafa" (2004) and "My Father and My Son" (2005), which according to Rekin Teksoy ""successfully exploited the melodramatic idiom and was a huge box-office success,"" which, ""showed that popular cinema was successful in appealing to wide audiences"" as well as receiving six Turkish Cinema Writers Association Awards including Best Director.