Basak Buyukcelen, who holds a Business Administration degree from Istanbul University and a film diploma from Vancouver Film School (VFS), started her cinema career with Kandira’da Son Sepetci (Last Basketmaker in Kandira), a TV distributed short documentary she co-directed. Later, while was studying at VFS, she wrote, directed and produced a medium length film, Ikilem (Dilemma). Ikilem premiered in Vancouver in 2010 and won Rising Star Award (Canada International Film Festival), Best Student Film Award (Ion International Film Festival), Best Short Film Award (Montreal Turkish Film Festival) and was a nominee for Best Actor (No Limits Student Film Festival) as well as Best Student Film (Canada International Film Festival). Recently she completed her latest short film, Derin Nefes Al (Take a Deep Breath), about a high school student taken to a gynecologist by her modern and well-educated parents to determine if she’s a virgin. Basak is working on her new film Kiskac (The Clamp) a feature film about the identity problems that swirl around the hijab, the female headscarf worn by many Islamic women. During the Puglia Experience, Basak developed another feature film, Explicit Corpse, a film about the identity problems of sexually repressed woman. The project was presented at Mediterranean Co-Production Forum (Italy). Basak participated in Sarajevo Talent Campus (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Puglia Experience (Italy), Berlinale Talent Campus (Germany), Script Station (Germany) and Locarno Summer Academy (Switzerland) and she also is a PhD candidate in Cultural Studies at Nottingham Trent University, England.