Tanju is a Turkish filmmaker who writes and directs narrative films that study the complexities of immigration, identity, and memory. His works have been selected for many prominent national and international film festivals.

Tanju received his M.F.A in Film and Media Art from Emerson College (USA) in 2017. He teaches film and video production courses as an assistant professor at Emory University.

He has just completed production of his short film “Woodpecker,” which follows the story of a Kurdish gay graduate student from Turkey seeking asylum while familiarizing himself with the Turkish-Kurdish diaspora in the U.S.

He is currently working on a feature film called “Black Hole,” which focuses on the generational ripples of the Greek-Turkish population exchange within the contemporary context of the U.S. and Turkey.