Tolga Akcayli

Tolga Akcayli is a Vincentian/Turk, born in London, England to a Vincentian mother, Beverley Gunn Akcayli, and a Turkish father, Tansal Akcayli. He lived the first 6 years of his life in Istanbul where he was dedicated to theater and ballet. In 1999 Istanbul suffered detrimental earthquakes, killing over 40,000 people. His mother being from a small island of 100,000 people, was not used to such catastrophe and his parents decided to return to the Caribbean, where they lived back and forth between St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Barbados. Tolga spent most of his early youth organizing plays and filming short stories with his siblings and friends on his father's camcorder. At 18 years of age, Tolga represented St. Vincent & the Grenadines at the 2012 London Olympics in Swimming. He then went into studying Law where he became a mastermind in winning existing and designing Mock Trials, creating elaborate scenarios and arguments that had the entire class in awe (his trials are still being used in exam papers today.) However, he decided it wasn't for him and he took the courage to break the adage that lingered over him all his life, "a career in the film industry would not be fruitful in the Caribbean," and enrolled for a course at the New York Film Academy. He completed the course, and Tolga convinced his classmates to come down to Barbados to attempt to make a feature film with no upfront payments, but instead, agreements in shares of the profits they'd earn. 5 months later, they were all in Barbados filming their first feature film "Too Lickrish" an award-winning comedy feature film that had international theatrical distribution, running for 6 consecutive weeks in cinemas. Tolga's goal is to establish a production company that creates narrative, documentary, and TV series that focuses on Caribbean stories, culture, and history. Tolga believes it will create channels for international revenue while exporting Caribbean art, culture, and history that can be distributed worldwide.