ALİCAN DURBAŞ

director & video artist

Alican Durbaş (b.1986, Istanbul) currently resides in Istanbul. After graduating from Arts Management at Yeditepe University in Istanbul, he received his MA degree in the same department. His main focus lies in investigating the relationship between cinema and video art. In his works, he explores the possibilities of establishing a narrative to be watched, to be followed and the opportunities to create actions, environments to be seen and further, to be experienced within the framework of certain formalist boundaries. His latest short film Soil (2017) was screened in the short film competitions of many international film festivals such as Sharjah Film Platform (2019), 37th Istanbul Film Festival (2018), 16th Tirana Film Festival (2018), and many more. In addition Soil was exhibited as a video installation at venues such as Beirut Art Center, Los Angeles Digital Arts Center and at events such as 9th Cairo Video Festival (2019), 22nd Rencontres Traverse Vidéo Toulouse (2019).

Durbaş attended the Berlinale Talents as director in Sarajevo Film Festival in 2011. He worked as an assistant director in some feature films like Taken 2, Skyfall, Dil Dhadakne Do, A War (Krigen), Ali and Nino, Inferno, The Ottoman Lieutenant, Butterflies, I Am You and Netflix Original Series: The Protector. As a participant of the Istanbul Biennial 2019-2020 Production and Research Programme, he develops his projects. He currently works on the post-production of his last short film Distant Mirror.