Ceyda Torun

Ceyda Torun — Biography

Kedi, a documentary about the street cats of Istanbul and the people who look after them, drew international attention to Turkish director Ceyda Torun. Released in 2016, it was her first feature and has been cited as the most-watched Turkish film in the United States. Torun co-founded the production company Termite Films with her husband, the cinematographer Charlie Wuppermann.

A large part of her life was spent outside Turkey: at eleven she moved with her family to Amman, Jordan, she attended high school in the United States and graduated from Boston University with a degree in anthropology. She then returned to Turkey to work under the director Reha Erdem before settling in the US again. Before Kedi she was an assistant director on the 2011 series Tutku Zamanı (Time for Passion); her filmography also lists Aşkı Tüketmek (Consuming Love, 2008).

The starting point for Kedi was her own childhood among street cats. Torun conceived the film as an examination of the human condition and said that some of its aspects can only be gleaned from our relationships with other animals, in this case cats. The documentary won Best First Documentary at the 2017 Critics' Choice Documentary Awards, where Torun was also nominated for Best Director, and it made Time magazine's list of the year's ten best films.