Ceyda Aslı Kılıçkıran

Ceyda Aslı Kılıçkıran — Biography

Ceyda Aslı Kılıçkıran was born on February 16, 1968, in İzmir, the daughter of one of the first directors and producers at Turkey's state broadcaster TRT. She graduated from Istanbul University's English Language and Literature program in 1993 and then spent a year in conservatory training. She worked as a journalist for foreign publications including the Daily News and the Middle East Journal before becoming editor-in-chief of CIDC Insight magazine, and entered filmmaking by writing commercial scripts and promotional shorts. Believing that the best films come when writer and director are the same person, she began making her own scripts into films: her debut Bağımsızlığımı ve Seni Seviyorum (2003) won a prize at the Pennsylvania Film Festival, Watermark (2005) received a special award at the Bordeaux Film Festival, and Bir Parça Özgürlük (2005) was nominated at the Golden Orange Film Festival. In 2007 she directed Geçerken Uğradım, a portrait of a modern woman dedicated to women's-rights writer Duygu Asena, and Kilit, about Afife Jale, Turkey's first Muslim female theatre actress, which won a prize from the Foundation of Women's Works and Library in 2008. One of very few female directors from Turkey or the Middle East, she focuses on identity, equality and women's freedom; American filmmaker Robert Richter later approached her about a documentary on Muslim women in the Middle East. She directed the documentary Geçiş in 2011 and in 2014 published a book drawing on it, gathering interviews she conducted with noted spiritual teachers in India and the United States.