Biography
Çağla Zencirci was born in 1976 in Ankara, Turkey. In her hometown, she spent four years working at the French embassy, followed by a long trip through the Middle East. In 2003, she started shooting her first short films together with her life partner, Frenchman Guillaume Giovanetti. Ever since then, the two have been working as a directorial duo, who live and work alternately in Paris and Istanbul. Zencirci and Giovanetti shot (initially short) fiction and documentary films in Europe, Central Asia and the Far East and Middle East.
Their documentary short "Shanty Garden Town" (2007), about a Turkish urban planner who seeks inspiration from allotment gardeners in Berlin, was screened at numerous international festivals, and won Best Short Documentary at the Festival Barcelona Docupolis. Another major festival hit was their 26-minute film "Ata" (FR/TR 2008), about a young, lonely Turkish woman in France who befriends an old Asian worker. The film received several festival awards, among them the Best French Language Short Film Award at the Women's Film Festival in Creteil (France), and the Grand Prix of the City of Tetouan at the Tetouan International Mediterranean Film Festival (Morocco).
In 2012, the duo presented their first feature-length film at the ACID section of the Cannes Film Festival: "Noor" (FR/TR/PK) tells the story of a transgender man in Pakistan who tries to live a "normal" life with a woman. The film was also featured at numerous festivals. At the Vancouver International Women in Film Festival 2014, "Noor," based on the lay lead actor's true biography, won the award for Best Performance. The film’s French theatrical release was in April 2014. Already the year before, Zencirci and Giovanetti had completed their second feature film, the poetic fantasy drama "Ningen" (TR/JP/FR). The film celebrated its world premiere at the 2013 Toronto Film Festival and was released in French cinemas in February 2015.
"Sibel", the duo's third feature film is also an international co-production, this time with German participation. It tells the story of a mute Turkish woman in a remote mountain village who begins a secret relationship with a deserter. "Sibel" had its world premiere in the competition of the Locarno Film Festival 2018 and was awarded the Prize of the Youth Jury, the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury and the FIPRESCI Prize. At the Hamburg Film Festival in 2018, the film received the Hamburg Producers Award, and at the Film Festival in Adana, Turkey, it won awards for Best Film, Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor. In December 2018, "Sibel" was released in German cinemas.