Where Do You Draw the Line? - Talks and Workshop Program
Talk: "Where Do You Draw the Line: Suggestions for Transformation"
Time: 15:30 – 17:00
Speakers: Elif Akçalı, Ruken Doğu Erdede, Özlem Güçlü, Gizay Akdoğan, Doğa Cinel, Emine Yıldırım
How can women of all ages and backgrounds — whether experienced or new to the field, from different professions or communities — who have contributed to cinema or wish to work and continue working in the industry, see, recognize, learn from, and create with one another?
How can we strengthen the connections and communication networks between cultural and art institutions, universities, and the film industry? With this strength, which institutions can we inform and convince for change?
Together, we discuss our dreams, best practices, and concrete steps that can be taken.
Elif Akçalı completed her PhD in Media Arts at Royal Holloway, University of London, in 2014. Since 2015, she has been a faculty member at the Department of Radio, Television, and Cinema at Kadir Has University, where she teaches both practical editing courses and theoretical courses on cinema and audiovisual media. Her research interests include film style and aesthetics, documentary and essay film, gender in cinema, and videographic film studies. Her articles have been published in Studies in Documentary Film, Journal of Film and Video, and [in]Transition. She co-authored the book Mustang: Translating Willful Youth (2022) with Özlem Güçlü and Cüneyt Çakırlar. She is the principal investigator of the TÜBİTAK-funded project Women on Screen and Behind the Camera in Turkey: The Current (2017–2021) Image of Representation and Labor. She is also a researcher in the ongoing EU HORIZON-funded project Reviving, Boosting, Optimising and Transforming European Film Competitiveness – REBOOT, led by the University of Vienna.
Ruken Doğu Erdede is a PhD candidate in Communication Studies at Kadir Has University. She completed her BA in Film & Television and Political Science (double major) and her MA in Film & Television at Istanbul Bilgi University. She worked as a researcher on the TÜBİTAK project Women on Screen and Behind the Camera in Turkey: The Current Image of Representation and Labor. She is currently a researcher on the EU Horizon Europe-funded project REBOOT (Reviving, Boosting, Optimising and Transforming European Film Competitiveness), which focuses on the European film industry. Her research interests include film theory, essay film, visual ethics, film and television industry studies, and feminist theory.
Doğa Cinel completed her BA in Radio, Television, and Cinema at Kadir Has University and is currently pursuing her MA in Cultural Studies at Istanbul Bilgi University. Throughout her studies, she has worked in both academia and various sectors of the industry, including positions at the university’s Corporate Communications Office and Faculty of Communication Dean’s Office, as well as teaching assistantships. She was a TÜBİTAK undergraduate and graduate fellow in the research project Women on Screen and Behind the Camera in Turkey (2017–2021). She co-created a video essay series for the Istanbul Film Festival’s Hitchcock selection and worked as an assistant director and project assistant on various feature films and Rimini Protokoll’s Remote Istanbul. Most recently, she served as project coordinator on Ceylan Özgün Özçelik’s 2025 fiction feature. She also produces short works in essay and experimental film.
Gizay Akdoğan has been actively working in the field of culture and arts. She began her career in the performing arts and was a co-founder of the Istanbul Fringe Festival. In 2020, she transitioned into the film industry and completed her MA in Cultural Management at Istanbul Bilgi University in 2024 with a thesis titled The Impact of Digital Streaming Platforms on Independent Film Production in Turkey: The Experiences of Independent Producers. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Communication Studies at Kadir Has University, focusing on digitalization, cultural policy, and film production culture. In April 2025, she received the Young Producer Award presented by Meetings on the Bridge as part of the Istanbul Film Festival, and in November 2025, she was selected for the “Young Producers Mentorship Program” within the Industry@Tallinn & Baltic Event framework.
Özlem Güçlü is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, where she teaches courses in film and media studies, critical posthumanism, and animal studies. She received her PhD from the Centre for Media and Film Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London; her MA in Gender Studies from Central European University; and her BA in Sociology from Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University. Her research interests include Turkish cinema and the politics of representation, as well as the intersection of film and animal studies. She is the author of Female Silences, Turkey’s Crises: Gender, Nation and Past in the New Cinema of Turkey (2016), co-editor of Queer Tahayyül (2013), and co-author of Mustang: Translating Willful Youth (2022) with Elif Akçalı and Cüneyt Çakırlar. She lives with her companions Dodi, Limon, and Koko.
Emine Yıldırım, after graduating from the Business Administration Department at METU, completed her graduate studies in Film at Istanbul Bilgi University. She has produced award-winning films such as The Fall (Son Çıkış) (2018 Tokyo FF Main Competition), The Impeccables (Kusursuzlar) (2013 Busan FF, Antalya FF, Romania FF), The Monsters’ Dinner (Canavarlar Sofrası) (2011 Montpellier FF, Antalya FF, Ankara FF), Ziazan (2014 Cannes Diversity), and Grey Zone (Gri Bölge) (2015 Berlinale Generation). With her screenplay for The Impeccables, she won the Best Screenplay Award at the Ankara Film Festival and the Bilge Olgaç Achievement Award at the Flying Broom Festival. Her experimental documentary Androktones (2018) was screened at Pera Museum and CICA Museum (Korea), and her short Kadıköy’s Best Fortune Teller competed at the Turkey-Germany Nuremberg Film Festival. Her first feature as writer-director, By Day Apollo, By Night Athena, will premiere in 2025. She teaches screenwriting at Kadir Has University and is an alumna of the EAVE Producers Workshop. For the past year, she has also been performing stand-up comedy.
* The event will take place at Kadir Has University / Cinema B. Entrances will be through Door D.
* To participate in this talk, you can register via the “Register” button on the event page and obtain your free invitation. Registrations will open five days before the event (on December 8, 2025, at 15:30), at which time the “Register” button will become visible. Participation is free and limited to 150 attendees. You can also access other events within the program via the “Full Program” button on the page.