Bülent Kılıç is a photojournalist working as a freelancer across Europe and the Middle East. He began his career in photography in the early 2000s and describes himself as part of the last generation of analog photographers.  Kılıç is a Kurdish photographer from Dersim, a mountainous region in eastern Turkey. He began covering the war in Syria from its early stages. In 2012, when he arrived at the Turkish-Syrian border, he realized that this would be the defining frontier of his life—nothing would be the same after crossing it. Since then, Kılıç has covered major conflicts in Iraq, Ukraine, and Afghanistan. He worked for Agence France-Presse (AFP) for 16 years before transitioning to freelance work in 2024. For Kılıç, simplicity enriched with aesthetic sensibility and emotional interaction is more meaningful than many other elements in photography. In his images—where he often strives to express what he feels—he seeks to convey a sense of hope and resistance.

Kilic has won multiple World Press Photo Awards and has also served as a jury member for the competition. He has been honored with the Visa d’Or—France’s most prestigious photography award—as well as receiving multiple accolades from Pictures of the Year (POY) in the United States. In Türkiye, he was awarded the Press Freedom Award for his work as a photojournalist. He collaborates with the Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant and with leading French publications such as Paris Match and Le Monde.