ILAYDA CETINKAYA

Ilayda Cetinkaya is an award-winning producer whose 35mm short film, "SKIN," won the 2023 Student Academy Award in the Alternative / Experimental category. She’s a recent AFI Conservatory graduate with an MFA in Producing, where her thesis film, RE-ENTRY, was awarded a grant from Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

She has gained invaluable industry experience through internships with award-winning director Oran Zegman, Amazon's longtime Development Executive Steven Prinz's company Borderless Pictures, Riverside Entertainment, and Alma Har'el's JELLYWOLF & ZUSA Pictures.  Her music video, "Por Una Cabeza,” garnered significant attention, reached over 150K views on YouTube, and earned selections at the 2020 Los Angeles and Melbourne Lift-Off Film Festivals.

Originally from Istanbul, she pursued her passion for filmmaking by moving to the United States at the age of seventeen. She began her journey at Idyllwild Arts Academy and completed her BFA in Film Production at Chapman University.