Çayan Demirel was born in Istanbul in 1977. After completing his degree at the Faculty of Economics, he started working in documentary film in the year 2000 with oral history projects. In 2006 he completed his documentary 38 about the Dersim events, and he established SURELA FILM PRODUCTION in 2008. In 2009 he won the “Best Documentary” award for his film Prison Number 5: 1980 – 84 at the Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival, the Ankara Film Festival and SİYAD. His documentary entit led Dr. Şivan (2013) is about the life of Dr. Sait Kırmızıtoprak, a Kurdish intellectual who lived between 1935 – 1971 and who was the founder of the first leftist Kurdish guerilla movement. Çayan Demirel’s documentaries have been shown at many international film festivals, universities and NGO’s. BAKUR is the director’s latest feature length documentary.