Azra Deniz Okyay Director and Screenwriter

Azra Deniz Okyay, daughter of an architect and an urban planner, was born in 1983 and raised in Istanbul. Her father’s family are immigrants of nomad Turkmen. Her mother’s family are immigrants from Greece and Bulgaria.
Azra Deniz Okyay attended both a Turkish and a French school as well as the Conservators in Istanbul in her childhood. At the age of 12 Azra Deniz Okyay started photography and became an assistant photographer at 14 until she finished her high school education at the Lycée Français Pierre Loti in Istanbul.
She shot her first short film when she was 16 years old and later moved to Paris to study Cinema at Sorbonne-Nouvelle where she completed her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees. At the same time, she studied for tow years as a freelance student at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in (EHESS) and worked at Michel Gondry’s production company Partizan as a production and post-production assistant.
During her time as a student, she organized video and cinema workshops for children in underprivileged neighbourhoods such as Zeytinburnu and Sulukule.

She is a member of Kirmizi Kart, a Feminist Activist Artist Group for gender equality and justice in Turkey.
Azra Deniz Okyay speaks and writes in Turkish, French and English.