Melisa Önel has been writing and directing shorts, fiction films and documentaries since 2007, including Me and Nuri Bala; Best First Documentary at Antalya Film Festival 2009, debut film; Seaburners that premiered at Berlinale Forum 2014, Coastliners; International Istanbul Film Festival 2016), and recently her second feature; Suddenly that premiered at Tokyo International Film Festival 2022, International Film Festival Rotterdam 2023.