Aslıhan Ünaldı

Aslıhan Ünaldı — Biography

Aslıhan Ünaldı is an Istanbul-born screenwriter, director and editor who has lived in the United States since the age of eighteen. She studied photography and international relations at Yale University before earning an MFA in film from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.

Her career began with short films: "Razan" (2006), her debut short, premiered at the Rotterdam Film Festival and went on to screen at dozens of festivals worldwide. She turned to documentary filmmaking in 2011 with the environmentally themed feature "Overdrive: Istanbul in the New Millennium," and in 2023 released her first fiction feature, "Suyun Üstü" (Afloat), a thriller set aboard a boat sailing the Aegean Sea; the film screened at festivals including Altın Koza and won awards at New York CineFest.

Ünaldı has also worked as a screenwriter on other productions, contributing to "Young Wrestlers," shown at the Berlinale in 2016, and "Skate Kitchen," which premiered at Sundance in 2018. Alongside her filmmaking, she teaches screenwriting in the graduate film programs at Columbia University and NYU Tisch.