Binnur Karaevli is an award-winning director and producer with an expansive background in film and theatre. She was born and raised in Turkey and received her BFA from Carnegie-Mellon University in Drama and her MFA in Film Production from University of Southern California.
Her short narrative films, Dance of the Whirling Dervish and Evelyn of the Desert received top prizes from several festivals including, Nürnberg Film Festival, Germany; New Orleans International Film Festival; and Cine-5 Film Competition, Istanbul. Her commercial production experience includes working for Ridley Scott & Associates, PBS, BBC, MGM and the Hallmark Channel. She produced and directed Searching for Paradise, which won the Best Documentary awards at the Moondance and WinFemme International Film Festivals. Her latest feature documentary, Voices Unveiled: Turkish Woman Who Dare has received the Audience Award at the SEE Los Angeles Film Festival, a Special Mention at the Rome Independent Film Festival in 2010. Some of the festivals Voices Unveiled has screened at include the Landlocked, London Independent Documentary, Millennium Documentary, Cineview, Napa/Sonoma Wine Country, and Vox Feminae (Zagreb, Croatia) Film Festivals. Right after graduating from Carnegie Mellon University, Binnur worked at the Arena Stage and San Diego Repertory Theatres as an Assistant Director and a Dramaturge. She was the Literary Manager at the Los Angeles Theatre Center where, in 1991, she founded the "Platform", an acclaimed political cabaret theatre group. Binnur splits her time between Istanbul and Los Angeles and is currently producing an adaptation of the acclaimed novel, “Palace of Tears” as a motion picture. She has also taught Filmmaking classes at the Bosphorus University and the Kadir Has University Graduate Film School.
