Umut Aral

Umut Aral — Biography

Umut Aral (born 26 June 1976) is a Turkish film director, screenwriter and producer. He grew up in Istanbul, attended Galatasaray High School and went on to study management at Boğaziçi University. Sources note that he began making films very young, shooting his first shorts at the age of thirteen, and that he speaks Turkish, English and French.

Aral has worked across feature film and television. His feature debut was İyi Oyun (Good Game: The Beginning, 2018), set in the world of esports. Around the same period he worked on the Netflix Turkish original The Protector, and later on Love 101 and Who Were We Running From? (2023). IMDb lists him as a director, writer and producer, with the 2024 television series The Good & the Bad among his best-known credits.

He is described as an International Emmy Award winner. In late 2025 his name featured prominently in the Turkish press alongside coverage of the series Deha, which took the International Emmy for best telenovela.