About Us

Can Candan (Director/Producer, Türkiye)

Documentary filmmaker and academic. Earned a bachelor’s degree and an MFA in film and media arts (Hampshire College, USA, in 1992, and Temple University, USA, in 1999). Their films Boycott Coke (1989), Exodus (1991), DuvarlarMauernWalls (2000), 3 Saat (2008), and Benim Çocuğum (2013) have been screened at universities, festivals, cinemas, and television channels, receiving awards. Taught film and media arts at various universities and institutions in the USA until 2000 and in Turkey thereafter. Has been teaching at Boğaziçi University since 2007. A founding member of docistanbul, the Documentary Research Center.

Ayşe Çetinbaş (Producer, Türkiye)

She was born in 1979 in Germany and graduated from the Economics Department of Istanbul University in 2002. After completing her master’s in European public policy at the University of Greenwich, she began working as a production assistant on various national and international documentary projects. In 2008-2014, she took part in the executive committee of the International 1001 Documentary Film Festival organized by the Association of Documentary Filmmakers. She worked as a fixer in various international TV, newspapers and magazines. As the co-founder of Surela Film Production, she undertook the production of Prison Nr.5: 1980-84’ (2009), My Child (2013), Dr. Şivan (2013) and Bakur (2015). Yıldız Alpar: From Bedii Raks Till Today’ (2011) was the first documentary she directed.

Christian Bergmann (Co-Producer, Germany)

Political Scientist, Curator & CEO. He completed his BA in European Studies at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, and his MA in Labour Policies and Globalization at the Global Labour University in Kassel/Berlin in Germany. He is the initiator and curator of the exhibition project “77□13 – Political Art and Resistance in Turkey” that took place in July/August 2015 at the neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst (nGbK) in Berlin. Currently, he is the Political Director and CEO of „Paul Open Search“, a search platform for political content. He works and lives in Berlin.

Filiz Yavuz (Researcher/Advisor, Türkiye)

Journalist, writer. She worked as an environmental reporter and editor for various newspapers and magazines, and created ecology programs for radio and television. Her book Beni “Akkuyu”larda Merdivensiz Bıraktın: Türkiye’nin Nükleerle İmtihanı was published by Can Publishing house in 2015. She, on the contrary, took part in anti-nuclear movement while she was a student of nuclear physics at the Istanbul University. She completed her MA in Journalism writing her thesis on “Interactions of urban culture and news articles; cases of Istanbul and Madrid” at the Marmara University in Istanbul in Turkey and Complutense University of Madrid in Spain. Currently, she is a PhD student in Journalism at the Marmara University and working to complete her aged thesis is on “Reflection of anti-nuclear movement to printed media in the AKP era between 2002-2015” at the Madrid Complutense University.

Cem Dinlenmiş (Illustrator, Türkiye)

Caricaturist, illustrator and painter based in Istanbul. In 2004 he started his studies at Marmara University Department of Graphic Design. In 2005 he began making monthly editorial illustrations for Bant Magazine and drawing cartoons for weekly humour magazine PENGUEN. In 2006, his political comic series on Turkey and the World “Her Şey Olur” has been published on the first page of PENGUEN for the first time.  After the closing of PENGUIN in 2017, he continues drawing in UYKUSUZ magazine.

Meryem Yavuz (Director of Photography, Türkiye)

Cinematographer. She was born in 1983 in Istanbul. She graduated from the department of Cinema-TV of Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University. Her first feature Two Lines (2008) was in Venice Film Festival Critics’ Week. In 2009, she was selected for Berlinale Talent Campus. Seaburners (2014) and Dust Cloth (2016) premiered their first international screenings in the Berlinale Forum. Eye Am (2014) received the Jury Prize in Moscow Film Festival in 2014. Tuesday (2015) competed in the Shorts of Cannes Film Festival; and her featured documentary The Others (2016) did in the national section DOK Leipzig. Road to London (2012) was screened in the world’s most prestigious cinematography festival Camerimage. She is also a member of the Cinematographers’ Association and the Union of Cinema TV.

Oğuz Kaynak (Sound Director, Türkiye)

Oğuz Kaynak had graduated from Istanbul University Radio TV Cinema department and got his MA degree from Istanbul Bilgi University Film & TV department. After finishing his MA thesis that focused on film sound, he worked in various national and international projects as a sound designer, sound editor and production sound mixer. He produced radio programs on film music and guitar music for 10 years in the national radio, TRT Radio 3. He is one of the co-founders of Giyotin Film. Since 2007 he is working in Giyotin Film as a producer and sound designer. The films he produced and did the sound design; Monsters’ Dinner (2011) got the jury award in Golden Orange Film Festival and The Impeccables (2013) won the best film and best director awards in the same festival.

İlke Ercan (Scientific Advisor, Türkiye)

Associate Professor of Engineering. İlke earned her doctorate degree in February 2014 from Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She has an M.S.E.C.E. with concentration in Electrophysics from the same department, a B.S. in Physics and an undergraduate minor degree in Philosophy and History of Science from Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey. Upon completing her PhD, she worked as a Visiting Faculty at Smith College Picker Engineering Program in Spring and Fall 2014. She pursued her postdoctoral research at the Institute for Semiconductor Technology and Nanoelectronics and Institute for Philosophy at TU Darmstadt in Spring and Summer 2015. Between Fall 2015 and 2020, İlke worked as an assistant professor at Boğaziçi University Electrical and Electronics Engineering Department where she founded and directed the Quantum and Nano Computing Systems Research Group. She currently coordinates the Electronics track in the Engineering Department at the University College Roosevelt in the Netherlands. In addition to her full-time teaching activities she continues to collaborate with colleagues across departments on various scientific and social responsibility projects.

Saadet Özen (Archival Research Specialist, Türkiye)

Saadet Özen was born in Istanbul. After her graduation from the French high school Notre Dame de Sion, she received her BA at the Department of Archaeology and Art History, Istanbul University. Subsequently she worked as an editor at Can Yayınları (1997-2006). In 2011, she earned her MA at the University of Boğaziçi, Department of History with her study on the Manaki Brothers’ still and moving images during the Young Turk Revolution. Currently a PhD candidate at the same department, her main areas of research are the political use of visual material (photography, advertisement material, postcards etc.), the consumption and perception of industrial food in the late Ottoman era, and the history of tourism. She has published two books: Notre Dame de Sion, 150 Yılın Tanığı (Yapı Kredi Kültür Sanat, 2006), and Çukulata, Çikolatanın Yerli Tarihi (Çukulata / A Turkish History of Chocolate, Yapı Kredi Kültür Sanat, 2014). As translator, she translated several books from French, English, and Spanish into Turkish. She has participated in the production of several documentary films, as “Mustafa” (by Can Dündar, archival researcher, 2006), “Ankara” (2011), and “The Last Caliph” (2013, co-writer and co-director).

Fevkalade (Graphic Design, Türkiye)

Fevkalade is an Istanbul-based visual communication design office co-founded in 2009 by Emre Parlak & Deniz Cem Önduygu, working on identity design, print design, editorial design, information design, and web design.

Mine Alıcıoğlu (Assistant to the Director, Türkiye)

Yaprak Aydın (Assistant to the Director, Türkiye)