Faysal Soysal (1979) was born in Batman, Turkey. He initially studied medicine before turning to poetry and cinema. He holds an MA in Film Directing from Tehran Art University and has directed and produced numerous short and feature films. His debut feature, “Crossroads” (2013), won awards at international festivals, while his second feature, “Silenced Tree” (2020), a Turkey–Iran co-production, has received 23 international festival awards. Soysal has also produced documentaries for Al Jazeera and TRT, published books on poetry and cinema, and has served as director of the International Amity Short Film Festival since 2018.