We were lucky to catch up with Daniil Demichev recently and have shared our conversation below.

Daniil, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Are you happy as a creative professional? Do you sometimes wonder what it would be like to work for someone else?

At the age of 17, I chose my profession and was confident in this choice, however the pressure of society and my parents often made me consider pursuing a stable job. At 18, I made my first documentary and chose my grandfather as the protagonist of the story. He was a sailor-geologist, I always admired his story and drew a model to capture the stories of his life on camera. In 2022, my grandfather fell ill with Covid and died.

Back then I didn’t know that this incident would change my understanding of creative activity.
After his death, I watched a documentary that I had not watched for years and realized the value of my profession. On the screen is my closest person, who is no longer here, but his story is sealed for centuries in the form of a film. The feeling that even after death I can continue to exist in the form of creativity, continue to share ideas, inspiring other people, gives me the strength and motivation to pursue my profession and I am happy that I made the choice to be an artist.

Daniil, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Daniil Demichev, I was born in 2000 in Moscow. At the beginning of my career, I could not imagine that I would live in Los Angeles, work with brands like Versace and do what I love and only that. I currently direct commercials and music videos shot on 16mm film, and I’m working on my first feature film, “Up to ten.”

My style of visual approach for telling stories by powerful film images. Most commercial work I shoot looks like a scene from a feature film. I give a short format visual and dramatic volume.

I am addicted to explosions in the frame, over the last 6 years of my career I have shot at least 5 controlled explosions. They work absolutely marvelous as an emotional trigger for the viewer and not only as a demolition effect. I use them in all genres From love scenes, where I show the flame of love between the characters, to the collaboration with the game CS:GO where we literally built a map from a shooter in real life.
After getting acquainted with 16mm film, I mainly choose this method of shooting; 80% of my portfolio was shot with it.
Often I tell a story using contrast. If I want to talk about light, I will first plunge the viewer into darkness, because it is through catharsis that the path to enlightenment lies.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The main reward is expressing oneself & working in creative energy. For me, cinema is a way of studying the world; the work of a director can have a strong influence on the way I view different areas of life.

In order to visually convey my message, emotion and beautifully tell a story, I need to let all the elements of the picture pass through me. With each new work, I seem to try on the image of the character and add a grain of personal pain. I find this process cathartic as it allows me to look at myself from an outside perspective, express real experiences and accept them.

My art gives my life meaning and forces me to constantly ask myself serious questions, the answer to which I can sometimes find only in a story.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

During one of my projects we were filming in an abandoned building. In the middle of shooting security guards showed up at the location and asked us to stop filming due to a miscommunication with the village management. All of the ordered equipment, a month of preparation and the concept of the work collapsed in a few moments. The film crew lost motivation and hope for a successful completion of the project.

Suddenly the producer announced that on the other side of the railway there was a location where we could continue filming. The sun needed for the shot was approaching the horizon, 4pm. The only railroad crossing was clogged with traffic, cars were lined up a mile long, and hope was fading again.

I suddenly had the idea; I asked the make-up artist to bring artificial blood (originally intended for one of the scenes) and smear it all over her face. She sat down in the passenger seat and I pressed on the gas. The makeup artist looked like she had just been run over by a truck. We started honking and shouting to the drivers, “we urgently need to go to the hospital!” We rushed through traffic in 1.5 minutes as opposed to 1-2 hours and managed to complete all of the planned shots.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://vimeo.com/dirxx
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dir.xx/

Image Credits
Photografers: 1) Egor Kreed 2) Valentin Piskun 3) Artem Pomarin