Ceylan (1980) is an Istanbul-based filmmaker who studied law at Marmara University but never practiced.

In 2003, after having worked as a text writer at several TV stations, she started to produce and host a TV show about cinema which ran for ten years. Between 2003 and 2015, she produced and hosted culture-art shows for TV and radio, and furthermore edited behind-the-scenes and award ceremony clips. In 2013, a book of interviews and media memoirs written by her, was published. Her movie reviews were published on print media for fourteen years. She participated in tens of film labs such as Directing Actors with Adrienne Weiss, Choreography and Movement Direction in Film with Francesca Jaynes, Cinematography with Stuart Dryburgh and Acting with Melissa Leo.

In 2015, Ceylan founded the Istanbul-based production company EHY Film to co-produce her own films and young talents’ projects with whom she has worked.

After having made three shorts, in 2017, she made her feature debut with Kaygı/Inflame, a psychological thriller about memory, which made its world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival’s Panorama Special section. Inflame had screened at a further 40 festivals worldwide and won the Luna Gamechanger Award at SXSW. Ceylan and the film were covered by the media outlets including Variety, Women and Hollywood, Tagesspiegel, ZDF and Politiken. FilmRise had acquired North American rights to Inflame and the film was shown at various events in the U.S. including Alamo Drafthouse Film Club. Inflame is currently streaming on U.S. Amazon Prime and MUBI.

Ceylan has been giving seminars on “Communicating with the Crew” and “Making a Debut Feature Film” at colleges and events for the last five years. She has attended to more than fifty film festivals and competitions as jury member including Turkey’s largest and foremost events, Istanbul Film Festival and Antalya Film Festival.

In 2017, she directed an episode of 7Yüz/Seven Faces, a miniseries, which is a thematic anthology comprising of seven stand-alone episodes examining "what-if" scenarios, released on the local streaming service BluTV. Ceylan became the first woman filmmaker to direct for a streaming service in Turkey.

Ceylan has been working on her new project: Witch Trilogy, which tells its tales in different genres and stories by exploring violence against women and little girls, since four years.

The fiction short Witch Trilogy 13+, a one shot horror/drama made its premiere at the 52nd Sitges Film Festival in 2019 and shown at various festivals including Ann Arbor, Fantaspoa and Brussels Fantastic Film Festival.

The documentary feature Witch Trilogy 15+, which portraits two women subjected to domestic violence by their husbands, and kill the men in self-defense is ready to meet with its audience at the festivals, very soon.

The feature fiction Witch Trilogy 18+, a dark comedy about the women of a mysterious family, is to be shot by the end of 2022 with an all-female cast. Ceylan was an artist-in-residence at Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg in 2018 and an SFFILM Rainin Screenwriting grantee in 2019 with 18+. Also she was one of the twelve candidates for the Résidence du Festival Cannes in 2019.

Armağan is an Istanbul based producer, graduated from Yeditepe University, Faculty of Radio Tv and Cinema.

She has worked in news channels including CNN Turk for three years. And then she stepped into the film industry as production assistant at SINEFILM. She had worked with one of the prominent directors of contemporary Turkish cinema, Pelin Esmer and performed as assistant director & associate producer for four years. Meanwhile she also worked as the representative of international formats of CBS, Carsey Werner at the fifty year-old production company UMUT SANAT.

Armağan founded FILMADA in 2013 to support innovative young filmmakers. She has been working with Ceylan Özgün Özçelik since her debut film Kaygı / Inflame and the duo is currently working on the Cadı Üçlemesi / Witch Trilogy films.

Armağan has produced five award winning shorts and four award winning features which have screened in Berlinale, SXSW, Sitges, Karlovy Vary, Ann Arbor, Festival du Nouveau Cinéma, RIDM and DokuFest among many other international festivals.

Armağan has been giving lectures on “Indie Film Producing” at colleges and special events for the last couple of years. She has served as jury member for international and national festivals including North Bend Film Festival and Turkey’s largest documentary festival Documentarist.

Armağan Lale is a member of DAE Documentary Association of Europe.