Preliminary Jury
Preliminary Jury
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Hayri Çölaşan was born in 1964 in Ankara. He got acquainted with cinema when his father worked as a machinist in Yenimahalle Seyran Theatre. In university he was trained for basic arts, ceramics, plastic and fine arts. In 1987 he started working for TRT Ankara Television as a lighting chief operator. After working in this position for 10 years, he transferred to the Actual Camera Operations. He took part in many documentaries as a cinematographer and a cameraman. He worked as a light operator in around 20 documentaries, camera assistant in 8 documentaries, cameraman and cinematographer in 71 documentaries and 6 foreign documentaries. He served as a preliminary jury and main jury member in many festivals. He created a database of jury members in film festivals and prepared a book on this subject. He tries to convey his training on cinema, his theoretical and practical experience through the website kameraarkasi.org.
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Dr. Deniz Gürgen Atalay serves as a faculty member in the Cinema and Television Department at Bahçeşehir University’s Faculty of Communication. Her academic research focuses on popular culture and film theory, while she specializes in documentary filmmaking.
In addition to her independent projects, she has directed documentary series supported by national and international non-governmental organizations, including the United Nations and Greenpeace. Dr. Atalay contributes to the field of cinema by exploring new narrative forms and theoretical perspectives through both her academic and practical work.
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Emrah Öztürk, born on March 10, 1986, graduated from Near East University's Radio-TV-Cinema Department in 2008. He earned a master's in Film and Cultural Studies from the University of Sunderland in 2010 and a PhD in Communication and Media Studies in 2020. As of June 2024, he is an associate professor in Fine Arts - Cinema and heads the Film Design and Directing Department at ARUCAD, teaching cinema courses.
Between 2010 and 2014, while in Istanbul, Öztürk worked as the Turkish crew coordinator for Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2011), as an assistant director and cameraman on Kanal D's Evim Şahane and TV8's Canım Doktor, and directed numerous promotional and advertising films at ASY Productions.
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Davita Günbay, also known as Naile Berberoğlu, is a lecturer at the Department of Film Making and Broadcasting at Near East University. She utilises post-structuralist critical theory to approach many issues ranging from globalisation to childhood in her academic studies. She has served as a jury member for the 10th GAU short film competition and the 1st International Rotary Peace Films Festival.
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Mustafa Ünlü was born in 1963 in Ankara. He graduated from Ankara University Faculty of Communications. After he experienced journalism in various magazines and newspapers during school years, he worked respectively at TRT news department and the 32nd Day news show. Since he entered the field of documentary in 1989 wrote, directed and produced many films. He is the founding member and chairman of board in 2015-2019 of the Association of Documentary Filmmakers in Turkey. Currently, he is a partner of the Kutup Ayısı Documentary Productions Company established in 2001, chairman of Punto24 Independent Journalism Platfrorm and lecturer for documentary cinema and visual design in Okan University, Cinema-TV department.