Returning to SevilFest as a jury member, Şirin Bahar Demirel won the festival's Best International Film Award in 2025 with her animated documentary Between Delicate and Violent.
Based in Netherlands, Şirin Bahar Demirel is a filmmaker and visual artist whose practice spans moving image, collage, and installation. Her work explores the intersection of personal and collective memory, often engaging with themes of gender, politics, and patriarchal systems. In recent years, she has been particularly interested in textiles and needlework as mediums for expressing resistance, care, and embodied histories.
Şirin studied Cinema at Galatasaray University in Turkey and earned an MA in Artistic Direction of Cultural Projects from Paul Valéry University in France. Her work has been presented at renowned festivals and institutions, including IDFA, the Netherlands Film Festival, Sarajevo Film Festival, Istanbul Museum of Modern Art, Sharjah Film Platform, Transmediale Berlin, and Ars Electronica.