Bülent Öztürk hails from Bağlarbaşı, a small Kurdish village in southeastern Turkey, where he was born into a family of thirteen children. He fled the country as a political refugee and travelled to Antwerp. In 2011 he gained a master's degree in film direction and audiovisual arts at RITS School of Arts in Brussels.
He has made two documentary films, the critique Talking Stones of Bakacik (Zaman Zaman, 2010) and the poetic Waiting (Beklemek, 2012). His filmography also includes two shorts, Shadow (Sí, 2016) and Houses with Small Windows (2013), which won Best European Short at the Venice IFF in 2013 and was also nominated for a European Film Award in the same category. Blue Silence is his feature film debut.
MFF Karlovy Vary
