Basak Buyukcelen, who holds a Business Administration degree from Istanbul University and a film diploma from Vancouver Film School (VFS), started her cinema career with Kandira’da Son Sepetci (Last Basketmaker in Kandira), a TV distributed short documentary she co-directed.

Later, while was studying at VFS, she wrote, directed and produced a short feature, Ikilem (Dilemma). Ikilem premiered in Vancouver in 2010 and won Rising Star Award (Canada International Film Festival), Best Student Film Award (Ion International Film Festival), Best Short Film Award (Montreal Turkish Film Festival) and was a nominee for Best Actor (No Limits Student Film Festival) as well as Best Student Film (Canada International Film Festival).

She is currently working on her new film Kiskac (The Clamp) a feature film about the identity problems that swirl around the hijab, the female headscarf worn by many Islamic women. With Kiskac, she was selected to participate in Sarajevo Talent Campus
(Bosnia and Herzegovina), Puglia Experience (Italy), Berlinale Talent Campus (Germany) and Script Station (Germany).

During the Puglia Experience, Basak developed another feature film, Explicit Corpse, a film about the identity problems of sexually repressed woman. The project was presented at Mediterranean Co-Production Forum (Italy).

Basak also is a PhD candidate in Cultural Studies at Nottingham Trent University, England.