PERU BIENAL

After receiving bachelor’s degree from the Department of International Relations at Istanbul University, she carried out master’s studies at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University’s Department of Film & TV.

She acts in different disciplines of art, thinking all of them feed her artistic movements, she tries to be a multifaceted artist. After receiving a short film script award, she decided to work in the film industry and started her career in 2005. She worked in the Turkish film industry at every stage of filmmaking, also in festival organisation for 10 years with director of Akbank Short Film Festival. 

Her debut movie as production designer and as responsible for international relations, was Selim Evci’s feature movie “Two Lines” (2008), which premiered at 65th Venice International Film Festival – Critics’ Week. She worked in all the creative stages of “Two Lines” including pre-production, production, post-production; also represented the title in many international film festivals and film markets. She was invited to the AFIC (Audiovisual Financing & Commercialisation) seminar as producer in 2008 which was held by MEDIA in Paris at the Sorbonne University. She was involved in the feature movie “Winds” at script development stage and presented it as responsible of international relations. In 2010, she played as leading actress in “Winds” and was also the art director. In 2014, she was involved in the feature movie “Secret” as art director. In 2018 she was invited to 68th Berlin Film Festival – Berlinale 2018 as production designer to attend Production Design Studio of “World Building Institute” as part of Berlinale Talents.

As an actress, she took lessons from Akademi Istanbul, Turkish State Theatres Opera and Ballet Members’ Foundation, Nazim Hikmet Foundation of Culture and Art, Gonul Ulku & Gazanfer Ozcan Theatre. In 2010, she was selected to the Theatre section of La Biennale di Venezia for “The Limits of Theatre” directed by Catalan director Calixto Bieito and then invited Calixto Bieito’s performance “Envidia” as actress at 41st International Theatre Festival – La Biennale di Venezia, 2011. 

Having the advantage of working on independent arthouse movies, she experienced every stage of creating, producing a feature  movie; both in front and behind the camera.

While she was working in the film industry in Istanbul, she started working on fine arts, especially on printmaking. And also continued on her own photography works. Her first solo exhibition on engraving & photography took place in Istanbul, 2013. 

After her first solo exhibition in 2013, she was invited from IX.Florence Biennial and received one of the “Lorenzo il Magnifico” awards in “works on paper” category in same year. She has been invited to biennials, triennials, group exhibitions, art fairs in different countries since 2013. She was invited to printmaking class with a grant at Salzburg Summer Academy of Fine Arts in 2015 and 2016. Same year, her work titled “Homage to Albrecht Dürer” became part of the permanent collection of the Albertina Museum, Vienna, where Leonardo da Vinci’s, Rembrandts, Picasso’s etc. artworks in the same collection. Beside Albertina Museum, her artworks are also in the collections of the Gabrova Museum in Bulgaria, the Drawing Museum in Macedonia, the Douro Museum in Portugal and the Istanbul Graphic Arts Museum.

With a note of “Homage to Ingmar Bergman”, her second solo exhibition,in 2018 “Myths”, was one of the 100th anniversary events for Bergman that continued throughout 2018, under the directorship of the Ingmar Bergman Foundation. “Myths” was also part of 37th Istanbul Film Festival events. After the exhibition she also attended Bergman Week at Faro island in Sweden, as an artist.

 With her documentary film project “Timeless” in development, she is invited to the Kyoto Filmmakers Lab in Japan in November 2019 and started the pre-production of the project.

In 2020, she started working with auteur director Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s film project “About Dry Grasses” as executive producer. The film had its world premiere in 2023 in the Main Competition Section of the 76th Cannes Film Festival and received the “Best Actress” award with Merve Dizdar. The journey of the film continued at important festivals such as the Toronto Film Festival, the New York Film Festival etc. The film is also Turkey’s official submission for Best Foreign Film at the 2024 Academy Awards for Oscars.In addition to producing the film “Kuru Otlar Üstüne”, she personally experienced every stage of the film’s production and shot the Making-of documentary «While the Grasses are Drying». This behind-the-scenes documentary consists of 3 parts and 7 hours.

In June 2023, representing the first deposit from Turkey; Mediha Didem Türemen deposited “a journey of an artwork” to Arctic World Archive (AWA)  which is located in Arctic Ocean in Svalbard Island. Deposit includes creation and printing stage photographs of an engraving work of her “Homage to Albrecht Dürer” and its information in the museum, Albertina. This deposit is also part of her documentary project “Timeless” focusing on leaving a trace to the future. In parallel with her documentary work “Timeless”, she started to study at the associate degree at Istanbul University “Cultural Heritage” Department.

In addition to the production process on the documentary «Timeless»; she continues to work on the documentary, photography and engraving project which she created during her journey to Nepal in the Himalayas in May-June 2024.

She works in cinema both independently and with Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s “About Dry Grasses”. Her works on photography, engraving and different fields of art continues in Istanbul.