Senem Tüzen

Senem Tüzen — Biography

Senem Tüzen (born 1980, Ankara) is a Turkish film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and editor. After graduating from the Fine Arts Faculty of Mimar Sinan University, she co-founded the production company Zela Film with friends and produced the travel documentary series "Adem'in Seyir Defteri," which ran for 39 episodes on TRT Türk between 2009 and 2012.

Her short films collected awards in several countries before her first feature, "Motherland" (Ana Yurdu, 2015), had its world premiere at the 72nd Venice Film Festival. The film went on to win five awards at the 22nd Adana Golden Boll Film Festival and the FIPRESCI and NETPAC prizes at the 31st Warsaw Film Festival, in addition to the Best Screenplay award at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards and the Golden Prometheus award for Best Film at the Tbilisi Film Festival.

In 2021, she co-directed the documentary "Eat Your Catfish," which premiered in the Envision section of the IDFA International Documentary Film Festival; the film later became the first Turkish documentary to win an Emmy Award.