ALİCAN DURBAŞ
director & video artist
Alican Durbaş was born in Istanbul, Turkey, in 1986. After graduating from Arts Management at Yeditepe University in Istanbul, he received his MA degree in the same department. Durbaş predominantly works on film and video. He has worked as an assistant director in many commercials and feature films such as “Taken 2”, “Skyfall”, “A War (Krigen)”, “Ali and Nino”, “Inferno”, “Butterflies”, “I am You” and “The Protector (Netflix Original Series)”. As director, he shot a documentary for “City and Art Project” of five European cities, which was organized by European Cultural Association, and implemented by Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, under the coordination of Secretariat General of EU Affairs. He attended the Berlinale Talents as director in Sarajevo Film Festival in 2011. Since then, he has directed many short films, which were screened in various film festivals and art exhibitions, both local and international. His last film “Soil” has been selected to the competition programmes of international film festivals such as the 16th Tirana International Film Festival (2018), the 37th Istanbul Film Festival (2018), the 9th Alchemy Film, Moving Image Festival (2019), and many more. Along with local awards, “Soil” won the Golden Pomegranate, Best Experimental Film Award at the 9th Start International Short Film Festival, Azerbaijan (2018). “Soil” has also been exhibited in arts centers such as Beirut Art Center, Los Angeles Center of Digital Art, Prép’Art (as part of the 22nd Traverse Vidéo Festival in Toulouse, France). His current short film project “Mirror” has been selected to participate in the 5th Drama Pitching Lab 2018 during the 24th International Short Film Festival in Drama (Greece), and 2018 Malatya International Film Platform (Turkey) as a finalist; and the International KısaKes Film Festival Pitching Platform 2018 (Turkey), where it received three support awards. He currently lives and works in Istanbul.
