N. Buket Cengiz, whose work on cinema has appeared in journals such as Offscreen (CA), Film International (SE), Senses of Cinema (AU), Moving Arts Film Journal (US) writes on different fields of culture such as cinema, literature and music. Her book, Right to the City Novels in Turkish Literature from the 1960s to the Present (2021), which is in the field of literary urban studies, is published by Palgrave. Cengiz, who holds a PhD in Turkish Studies from Leiden University, was a postdoctoral researcher at Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient in Berlin and a visiting researcher at University of Glasgow, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences. She has been a member of Kadir Has University’s academic staff since 2004.

Ceylan (1980) is an Istanbul-based filmmaker who studied law at Marmara University but never practiced. She produced culture-art shows for TV and radio, and furthermore edited behind-the-scenes. She made her feature debut with INFLAME, a political thriller, premiered at the Berlinale’s Panorama Special and won the Gamechanger Award at SXSW in 2017. Ceylan was an artist-in-residence at Berlin-AIR in and an SFFILM grantee in with her project: WITCH TRILOGY that tells its tales in different forms by exploring violence against women. Her shorts and features screened at various festivals such as Dokufest, RIDM, London Short Film Festival, Ann Arbor, and Sitges. The latest documentary feature written, directed and co-produced by her, STRANGE ABANDONED DERANGED is about the weirdest eco-hotel in Turkey and ready to meet the audience this very year.

Ekin is an award-winning director and filmmaker based in Istanbul, Turkey. Her interest in visual arts started with photography at an early age. She received her BA degree in Filmmaking from the University of the Arts London. She majored in film editing and assistant directing during her degree, and worked on many projects as a production assistant, editor, and assistant director in London. Returning to Istanbul, she continued working as an assistant director, mostly on commercial films.
The feature debut film which she co-directed and co-produced, DUET (2022), was awarded the Special Jury Prize at the 59th Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival, a Special Mention at the 42nd Istanbul Film Festival, and the Johan Van Der Keuken New Talent Award at the 16th Documentarist. Premiering internationally at the Indie Cork Film Festival in Ireland, Duet was also invited to many special screenings, such as at Istanbul Modern as part of the “Mind The Gap: Women Filmmakers” program. Ekin is currently immersed in her second film project, aiming to explore the seamless integration of documentary and fiction elements.