ILAYDA CETINKAYA

Ilayda is an award-winning producer based in Los Angeles, originally from Istanbul.
 

Her solo-produced 35mm short film SKIN won the Gold Medal at the 2023 Student Academy Awards, screened at over 60 festivals worldwide, and earned her Best Producer honors at the 2024 Reale Film Festival and the 2023 LA Cinematography Awards - qualifying for the 2024 Academy Awards in Best Live Action Short Film. She was selected as a second-round candidate for the Sundance Producing Lab.

 

Her short Re-Entry received the Alfred P. Sloan Production Grant and won the Amazon MGM Award in 2024. She served as associate producer on the TV pilot One for the Team, directed by Emmy-nominated Rain Valdez. Her short Corpse Fishing, backed by Lena Waithe's Hillman Grad, premiered at the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival and qualified for the 2025 Academy Awards in Best Live Action Short Film. She recently line produced Lionsgate's first horror vertical feature, set for dual release. 

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A second-round candidate for the Sundance Producing Lab, she is currently packaging several feature films: OMA, a psychological thriller fiscally sponsored by Film Independent and selected for SEEFest 2025's Accelerator; Rain Valdez's When Jupiter Returns with EP Lilly Wachowski; and PACE with writer/producer Beck Williams and director Leo Behrens.

Beyond her own projects, Ilayda is committed to the independent film ecosystem. She serves as Shorts Programmer and Asian Vision Award Jury Member at the Asian World Film Festival and as Director of Shorts Programming at SEEFest.
 

She moved to the U.S. from Istanbul in 2014, trained at Idyllwild Arts Academy, earned her BFA in Film Production from Chapman University, and completed her MFA at the AFI Conservatory's Producing Fellowship.