Günel Cantak

Gunel Cantak was born in Izmir. He graduated from the Department of Radio and Television Broadcasting of Suleyman Demirel University in 2008. His first documentary "Duvar" ('The Wall') won the 2010 Metin Goktepe Journalism Prize and the Jury's Special Prize. Cantak had worked as a correspondent for Milliyet and Cumhuriyet, which were the two of Turkey's most prominent daily newspapers. Starting from 2010, he worked as an editor, researcher and reporter with Mehmet Ali Birand, who was one of the country's most celebrated journalists and broadcasters, on his political talk show "32. Gun" ('32nd Day'), the CNN Turk and Kanal D's joint docu-series "Son Darbe: 28 Subat Belgeseli" ('The Last Coup: the 28th February Documentary') as well as "Erdogan'li Yillar" ('The Erdogan Years'). Together with Can Dundar, he co-produced "Ardina Bakmadan - Birand" ('No Looking Back - Birand'), "Gozdagi" ('Threat') -an account of the first 48 hours of the Gezi Park Protests- and "Nazim'in Kamerasi" ('Nazim's Camera') -focusing on Nazim Hikmet, who is one of Turkey's most famous modern age poets and his life in exile-. Cantak went on to take part as the general coordinator of the docu-series "Kultur Yolculari Kuba'da" ('Cultural Journeys in Cuba') in collaboration with Nebil Ozgenturk, Can Dundar and Coskun Aral. He also carried out research for National Geographic's "Iklim Meselesi" ('Climate Issue') documentary. Gunel Cantak continues to actively produce new content under the name of Punta Films, which he co-founded in 2016."