After graduating from the Marmara University Faculty of Communication Department of Radio, Television and Cinema, Didem Şahin studied screenwriting at Birkbeck University. With a British Council scholarship, she completed her master’s degree on documentary film production and directing at Brunel University in London. In 2007, her first documentary film Don’t Tell My Mom, I’m Going to Beirut won the SİYAD Award for Best Documentary. In 2009, she completed the documentary Lady Mukhtar, which was screened at several festivals. Şahin participated in the Berlinale Talent Campus in 2010, and her documentary My Ali Sami Yen, in which she examined the relations between sports and politics, won the Best Documentary Award at the FICTS International Sport Film Festival in 2011. Şahin’s documentary No Sochi! was screened in competition at the 2013 Al Jazeera Documentary Film Festival, among many other festivals in Turkey and around the world. In 2015, she completed two documentary projects that were supported by the Ministry of Culture: Gamze Bulut, and Brikama, the latter of which was filmed in Africa. The documentary The Shadow of Ebola, which was filmed in West Africa, was broadcast on the TRT Belgesel channel. In 2016, Şahin made the documentaries Kamp and Turnuva, on the survival struggles of Syrian refugees. In 2018, she completed the drama-documentary Turkmens on the history of the Turkmen people, which was filmed in Mongolia, Iraq and Turkey. The documentary was named the Second Best Documentary at the Turkish World Documentary Film Festival. Starting from 2016, Şahin was a jury member for the Cannes Media and TV Awards. Bitter Sweet is her first feature documentary.

The courageous and prolific director and producer Didem Şahin, who created many internationally renowned documentaries, passed away in 2022.