The jury members for the National Documentary Film Competition, which will take place as part of the Antalya International Golden Orange Film Festival—the most important gathering of the Turkish film industry—have been announced. The competition’s jury consists of “Sabire Soytok, Selçuk Metin, and Aslı Akdağ.”
The jury members for the National Documentary Film Competition, part of the 63rd International Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival—which will take place this year from October 24 to 31, 2026—have been announced. Submissions for the competition will be accepted until Monday, August 31, 2026. The Best Documentary Film will be awarded 300,000 TL, while the recipient of the Documentary Film Special Jury Prize will be presented with a statuette.
Leading Figures in Documentary Film at the Golden Orange Festival
Dr. Sabire Soytok, a jury member of the National Documentary Film Competition, graduated from the Department of Cinema, Television, and Photography at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Dokuz Eylül University. After working as a founding faculty member in the Department of Cinema and Television at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Erciyes University, she joined Dokuz Eylül University in 2000. In addition to directing the documentaries Birsen Kaya, Queen of Adventure (2014) and Tariş: 100 Years of Struggle (2016), she served as the screenwriter for the documentary Those Who Walk Toward the Fire (2014). Having served as a coordinator and jury member at various international film festivals, and having led the film design coordination for the Izmir Metropolitan Municipality’s “We’re Filming in Our Neighborhood” project, Soytok currently serves as a faculty member in the Film Design Department at the Dokuz Eylül University Faculty of Fine Arts.
Selçuk Metin, a producer and director who serves as a jury member for the National Documentary Film Competition, was born in Lüleburgaz in 1976. After graduating from the Department of Agricultural Engineering at Uludağ University, Metin worked at the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV) from 1998 to 2019, where he produced promotional films for all of the foundation’s Istanbul festivals and served as stage director for the ceremonies. In 2019, he founded Porte Film and focused on documentary production and directing. Metin has directed numerous important biographical documentaries, including Ve Perde! Haldun Taner (2015), La Diva Turca Leyla Gencer (2018), I’m Glad I Did It – Metin Akpınar (2020), You Can Do It, Sweetheart — Haldun Dormen (2022), and CANİKO — Yıldız Kenter (2023). The documentary GENCO — Genco Erkal (2021), directed by Metin, was screened for audiences as part of the special screenings selection at the 61st Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival. The acclaimed director is currently working on the production of the documentaries Emel Sayın, Gürer Aykal, Faces of Hope, and Music for Peace, all set for release in 2026.
Aslı Akdağ, a jury member of the National Documentary Film Competition, is a director, producer, and intellectual property law expert. After completing her law degree, Akdağ earned a master’s degree in Film and Drama Production. She won the Jury Special Mention Award in the Generation Kplus section at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival for her first feature-length documentary as producer, Genç Pehlivanlar (2016). Her first feature-length documentary, Bekleyiş (2021), won the Special Jury Prize at the Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival, as well as Best Documentary awards at the Ankara Film Festival and the Golden Saffron Documentary Film Festival. Akdağ, who was honored with the Best Project Award at the Antalya Film Forum for her fiction film Guve, is currently developing Sisler Krallığı—which she wrote to serve as her first feature-length fiction film—and continues to produce documentary and fiction projects that focus on the lives of women and children and explore themes of belonging, identity, and social transformation.
Last year, at the National Documentary Film Competition, the Best Documentary Film Award went to Roman Gibi, directed by Tayfun Belet, while the Documentary Jury Special Award was presented to Yerli Yurtsuz, directed by Rıza Oylum. The awards for the 63rd International Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival will be announced at the awards ceremony to be held on Saturday, October 31, 2026.
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