Umut Aral was born in İstanbul. He graduated from Galatasaray High School and studied in Department of Business in Boğaziçi University.
Aral started his career as a director in 2002 and ever since he has directed more than 250 TV commercials for many international and national trademarks such as Vodafone, McDonald's, Nestle, Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Unilever both in Turkey as well as abroad. The commercial films directed by Aral received many awards in their categories in various festivals.
As well as working in stage management, Aral also acted as the leading actor and script writer in 6 different Boğaziçi University Plays during his time in Boğaziçi University. In the meantime, he put on 2 theatre plays and 1 musical in Galatasaray High School.
He shoot his first short film "Thirty Four" in 1999. The film received awards from many national film competitions and was screened in international film festivals.
In 2005, Umut Aral shoot his second short film called "Çarpışma (Crash)". The film received 13 awards from both national and international film festivals and it was screened in important festivals such as Locarno, Raindance and Drama.
Being known with his work in different platforms, until today Aral has shoot films in different formats including film, TV series, documentary, commercials, clips, viral videos, flash mobs, interactive videos, 306 and hologram videos. Umut Aral also directed international teams from Europe and Asia.
In 2017, he directed an episode (Life's Music) of 7Yüz – Turkey's first anthology TV series for BluTV.
In 2018, Aral worked on two ground breaking projects signed with Netflix. He directed both "The Protector" – Turkey's first ever Netflix Original Series, as well as the first sports film "İyi Oyun (Good Game)". "The Protector" was watched more than 10 million times in its first four weeks following its release.
Umut Aral acts as the Chairman of Board of Members of Mithat Alam Education Foundation whose mission is to educate younger generations by providing scholarships both in Turkey and abroad since 2015. Moreover, Aral trains young generations who wish to obtain a career in the field of cinema by organizing talks as well as workshops. Aral professionally continues his work as a director in Turkey and abroad.
