ÖmerKaya

1986

1986 · Rüsselsheim

Rüsselsheim

On November 10, 1986, Ömer Kaya is born in Rüsselsheim. His grandparents came from Kayseri in 1982 and his parents two years later, and while his grandfather works at Opel, his father works shifts at the Schott glassworks.

In this family, money is the one thing that is always missing.

90s

The nineties · Dicker Busch

Dicker Busch

High-rises, housing projects, a patch of dirt to kick a ball on, and forty, fifty kids outside. He stutters and hardly anyone takes him seriously. When his class elects him class president, the teacher takes the post away from him on the second day.

At thirteen he walks into the Rüsselsheim boxing club for the first time. His coach, a Belgian named Francis Robin, picks him up at home, drives him to training and afterwards sits down with him to do his homework.

Nobody told me that what was burning inside me was a weapon, one I only had to learn to wield.

2003

At sixteen · Downtown Rüsselsheim

Money talks

In an older friend's internet café he prints, copies and scans for other people. Then he buys ten, fifteen watches on eBay from a brand whose price hardly anyone knows, and sells them over the counter for two and three times as much.

Money talks.

2005

2005 · Rüsselsheim and Nauheim

The worst day

At eighteen he feeds everything he has into a slot machine in a single afternoon, and the movie he promised his little brother is off. He only tells him they will play at home today. He never touches a slot machine again.

That same year, in Nauheim, he lands his first deal as a broker, selling home savings plans for BKM.

On the day I thought I had lost everything, I actually gained a great deal.

2007

2007 · Wiesbaden

Forty trucks

For six months, after fourteen hours behind the wheel, he sits in class at night, and in 2007 he passes the exam for commercial freight transport. A year later he stands in front of twenty men, all of them friends of his father who still see the little boy in him, and speaks to a group for the first time. Nobody leaves.

The one-man business grows into the OKay Group, with more than forty trucks, more than sixty employees and over five million euros in revenue a year.

I can talk. I'm a machine.

2011

2011 · The fall

The letter

In 2011 he marries Gülşah. When the two of them come home from their honeymoon, a notice from a tax case is waiting at the door, and he breaks down. For half a year he gets up in the morning, walks around, eats and trains, and that is all he can manage. The same year brings personal bankruptcy.

Before 2011 is over, he founds a second transport company and is making money again. The case is not closed until 2019, and by the end he has paid around 185,000 euros.

My wife held me up. In life, and on my feet.

2013

2006 to 2025 · Financial services

The second career

Alongside all of this, he rises in the finance industry: district manager at BKM, principal agent for Allianz and, from 2013, district director with around 160 people under him. In 2015 the Inter insurance group brings him on board, and for a while his face rides the autobahns on the sides of trucks.

My motto has always been: little work, lots of money.

2016

April 2016 · Mainz and Istanbul

In front of the camera

In April 2016 he starts taking acting classes, in Mainz and in Istanbul. To him, film is first of all a calculation that has to add up, and that is exactly how he puts it.

I wanted to turn 8 into 16, and 16 into 32.

2019

2019 · Midyat, Mardin

Muhteşem Üçlü

In May 2019, filming on Muhteşem Üçlü begins in Midyat, produced by his own company, ÖK Yapım. Three days before the October release, the premiere is called off. The new date in April 2020 falls into the first lockdown, and almost 150,000 euros are gone.

Later, the film airs on Turkish television.

2020

2020 · The pandemic

Keşke

In the spring of 2020 every shoot comes to a halt, and he writes his first book, in Turkish, as a conversation with himself. Hayatınızda Keşkelere Yer Vermeyin (Leave No Room for Regrets in Your Life) comes out in September from Az Kitap and goes into a fourth printing. The same year brings İlham Veren, a series in five volumes.

This is not a success story. This is not a sob story either. This is simply how it was.

2022

2021 to 2022 · Istanbul

Osman Sekiz

At the end of 2019 he takes the screenplay for Osman Sekiz to Ezel Akay. The pandemic pushes everything back. Filming finally happens in 2021 in an old mansion in Istanbul, and in March 2022 the film opens in German theaters, followed by Turkish theaters on April 1.

He loses 800,000 euros of his own money along the way, and to this day none of it has come back.

I have seen the end of the world coming many times. Not once was it the end.

2025

Mid-2025 · Dubai

Dubai

In mid-2025 he moves to Dubai with his family. From there he works with entrepreneurs from the German-speaking world and the Emirates, and he does not dance around the reason for the move.

I want my son to grow up masculine and my daughter feminine. Not because of the taxes.

2026

Today

Die Hand des Vaters

Today he is an entrepreneur, a mentor and Der Mythenbrecher, the myth breaker. At Falke, a tax and law firm, he is in charge of management and strategy. On October 23, 2026, his book Die Hand des Vaters (The Hand of the Father) comes out, about the patterns that pass from one generation to the next in business-owning families.

Your father's hand rests on your life until you lift it.