
Duru Yücel
Acting
Biography
Duru Yücel is a Turkish actress and screenwriter who is fluent in English and speaks Spanish and Romanian enough to play non-native Spanish and Romanian-speaking roles. Even before studying theatre for a year at the age of 10, which led to her first appearance on stage with two different characters in the same play, she knew very clearly that she wanted to be an actress. Duru later chose to study English-Turkish Interpretation and Translation in college but her passion for acting never stopped haunting her, so she continued her education with three years of acting and art training at The Studio Players in Istanbul, where she performed multiple times with them. She also acted in various TV series, commercials, and worked with international film festivals, hosting esteemed guests such as the late Golden Globes President Lorenzo Soria. From 2021 onwards she began wearing other hats as judge and jury member for festivals such as FilmQuest and World Monologue Film Festival. Duru Yücel's most recent cinematic venture is We Put the World to Sleep, an independent feature film 9 years in the making she stars in and also produced and co-wrote. Directed by Adrian Țofei , the movie is the second part of their spiritual trilogy. Duru adores jazz and has a demo album of ten classical jazz songs which received good feedback from the music industry. Swimming, yoga, traveling, spending time in nature, learning about the ways of the world and the causes she has the privilege to support, the topics of literature, painting, architecture, health, psychology, spirituality, science, and history are some of her other interests.
Known For

Adrian and Duru get lost in the characters they play in an apocalyptic film and embark on a secret mission to end the world for real. Second entry in Adrian Țofei and Duru Yücel’s spiritual trilogy which includes Be My Cat: A Film for Anne and Pure.
We Put the World to Sleep

How would a found footage film look if the footage was never found? This conceptual art experiment questions the very nature of film and cinema while serving as an ironic tribute to the found footage horror pop culture. The found footage format provides the narrative justification for such a film to exist: the non-existence exists because the footage existed yet it was lost and never found.
Lost Footage

Final entry in Adrian Țofei and Duru Yücel's spiritual trilogy which includes Be My Cat: A Film for Anne and We Put the World to Sleep.
Pure

When Ali's father hires a new secretary, she awakens desires in Ali that the shy 22-year-old never knew he had. But working for his father, his mother reminding him he's the right age to marry, and trying to be a good Muslim complicate things. Now he must choose between family duty and true love. Can you really make yourself and your family happy at the same time?
Grandpas Know Best

When two unsuspecting women filmmakers from Los Angeles travel to Romania to premiere their new horror film Non Finimus in a festival, they discover that nothing is what it seemed.