UMUT VEDAT

Umut Vedat, a photographer and filmmaker, as a documentarist embarked on a journey to witness the past and present firsthand, and collaborated with NGOs, including Roots&Routes, Greenpeace, Sierra Club, Heinrich Böll Foundation, IGLYO, Armenian Heritage Foundation, La Via Campesina, Support to Life, and European Climate Foundation. Focusing on discrimination, cultural interactions, and environmental subjects, Umut worked as a documentarist and journalist, capturing emotions through lens and articles, his works were published in media outlets such as The Guardian, Le Monde, Sierra, Agos, and Bianet. With solo exhibitions in Istanbul, Yerevan, Tbilisi, and San Francisco, Umut also contributed to global exhibitions like the Angkor photo festival in Krong Siem Reap.

Prior to immersing himself in the world of filmmaking, Umut Vedat had been working as a creative director in advertising agencies. Then he quits in 2011. During this transformative period, Umut discovered the profound expressive power of dance and music shorts as potent tools for conveying individual emotions and as personal research for body movement. Umut's passion for cultural interactions and empathy led him to deliver a TEDx speech. In 2016, Umut directed a feature documentary titled "Dark Atlas," an activist manifesto aimed at awakening grassroots awareness. In 2020, Umut presented a light performance at the ÖÖvalgel Light Festival in Parnu, Estonia.

Umut obtained an Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degree in Cinematography, presented by a consortium of renowned partners including the National Film School at the Institute of Art, Design and Technology in Dublin, Ireland (IADT), The University of Theatre and Film Arts in Budapest, Hungary (SZFE), and the Baltic Film, Media, Arts and Communication School of Tallinn University in Estonia (BFM). Umut believes in the lifetime progress of learning as a person and as an artist.