JURY MEMBERS ANNOUNCED FOR THE “FILM SCHOOLS STUDENT FILM COMPETITION!”
The jury members for the “Film Schools Student Film Competition,” now in its third year at Turkey’s longest-running film festival, the Antalya International Golden Orange Film Festival, have been announced. The competition’s jury consists of “Nihan Okutucu, Natali Yeres, and Uğur İçbak.”
The jury members for the Film Schools Student Film Competition—where film professionals and film students will come together—have been announced for the festival, which will hold its 63rd edition this year from October 24 to 31, 2026.
The Film Schools Student Film Competition, which received 70 submissions from 70 relevant departments at 48 different universities across Turkey, had a preliminary jury consisting of film critic Cumhur Canbazoğlu, screenwriter and author Ceyda Aşar, and screenwriter and director Fırat Özeler.
Renowned Figures Will Judge Films by Film School Students
Nihan Okutucu, a jury member for the Film School Student Film Competition, graduated from the Theater Department of the Müjdat Gezen Arts Center Conservatory in 2007 and has since appeared in TV series including Ezo Gelin, Ayrılık, Mor Menekşeler, Önce Vatan, Kuzey Güney, and Baba Seni Tanıyorum. Okutucu, who has appeared in feature films such as Vicdan, Görünmeyenler, Bir Zamanlar Anadolu’da, Uzun Zaman Önce, Kör Noktada, and Savrulan Zaman, has participated in numerous international and national film festivals, including Cannes and Berlin, with these films. As one of the founders of Alan Cihangir and Audition House Istanbul, Okutucu served as producer and director of the play DNA, which premiered in 2026.
Art director and production designer Natali Yeres, a jury member for the Film Schools Student Film Competition, also won awards for the short films she made during her student years. Yeres, who has won awards from numerous organizations—including SİYAD, the Ankara Film Festival, and the Istanbul Film Festival—for her productions, has received Lifetime Achievement and Honorary Awards. Yeres, who once wrote articles on short films and cinema for Megamovie magazine, has been teaching Art Direction courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels at universities since 2007. In addition to her work in the industry, she continues to be active through festival juries, short film workshops, and children’s film workshops.
Uğur İçbak, a jury member of the Film Schools Student Film Competition, also spent his time as an assistant working alongside foreign cinematographers on feature-length foreign film productions shot in Turkey. The short films he worked on as a cinematographer throughout his time in school paved the way for him to enter the film and advertising industries. Combining his interest in aviation with cinema, İçbak obtained his private pilot’s license and subsequently handled aerial cinematography for numerous domestic and international projects. With 20 feature films, numerous commercials, and music videos to his credit, İçbak won two Golden Orange Awards and one SİYAD Award for Best Cinematography for the feature films he worked on while still a student. İçbak serves as an instructor at the Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts Cinema and TV Center, where he teaches hands-on courses on lighting techniques and cinematography.
Schools and students who make it to the festival finals will be accredited to attend recent domestic and international films in the festival program and will have the opportunity to meet with film industry professionals throughout the festival. The student film selected as “Best Film” in the competition will be awarded the Golden Orange statuette.
At the festival, 10 films were evaluated from among 34 projects submitted by 75 different film schools across Turkey in last year’s Film School Student Film Competition. In the competition, the Gain Jury Special Award for Student Films was won by Eylül Babur from Istanbul Medipol University for her film “What Is the Perfect Measure?”, while the Best Film Award went to Abdurrahim Karabulut from Istanbul University for his film “The Murmur of the Mound.”
