We were lucky to catch up with Doğu Özorhan recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Doğu , thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.
As a young filmmaker, I believe cinema lost the ‘magic’ in it. I think the magic in cinema was a result of the films leaving the audience confused, surprised, or wondering. With the development of technology the industry gave up on practices such as practical illusions, surrealism, and creating a work of art that is a creation of multiple disciplines.
That is why, with all of my film or photography work I try to create more experimental work. I try to experiment with perspective illusion, stop motion animation with paint, and play around with the theme of surrealism.
As a classical musician I compose my own soundtrack pieces for my films because I feel as the more I interpolate from different ways of expressing emotions into a work of film, the more personal and unique it becomes. I believe a lot of brands and artists in the filmmaking industry lost the sense of creating personal pieces.
I believe only through implementing all of these features, the magic in filmmaking or creating a work of art can exist once again.
Doğu , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I was born and raised in Ankara, Turkey. My mom being a cellist and my dad being an opera singer caused me to be always surrounded with music when I was growing up. Most of my weekends as a child was spent at the opera; walking around singers and dancers in costumes.
During high school I started to realise I wanted to study art in college but there were not a lot of opportunities in Turkey regarding studying any of my passions academically. That is why I applied and got accepted to United World Colleges USA and left my life back home to study abroad at the age of 16, right when the Covid pandemic and all of the flight restrictions were happening.
My boarding school was a crucial turning point in my life where I got to spend two years with so many people from so many different countries. It was also when I realised I did not want to study fine arts or painting academically, and I slowly started inclining towards filmmaking.
After finishing my two year IB diploma program in New Mexico, Montezuma I finally decided that I wanted to study filmmaking and pursue it as a career.
In 2022, I moved to Sarasota, Florida and started studying in Ringling College of Art and Design as a film major. During my first year I discovered my interest in photography and also business, so I started my photography and business minors.
Over the past two years, I worked on several photoshoots and a variety of them got published in editorial magazines which made me realise that I should continue to publish my work as much as I can.
During my second year, I made my sophomore film Goodbye Blue Sky (2024) where I tried to implement all my background in fine arts into filmmaking, and composed my first soundtrack.
After sending it to several festivals in both United States and around the world, my first festival short film got screened in 4 continents, in 17 international festivals and won 3 awards for Best Experimental Film, and 2 awards for Best Student Short film.
Currently I am 21 years old, working on my first feature film outside of film school and I am excited to see what else the future is going to bring through.
Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?
The biggest influence on my ideology and philosophy as an artist has been David Lynch, who recently passed away. His book “Catching the Big Fish” has changed the way I create my work and develop my ideas into reality.
Throughout the last two years of high school, I spent all my nights working on new paintings while listening to his podcasts or interviews. I see him as one of the most important creative minds and thinkers from the recent history.
He made me truly understand what living the “art life” really means. He helped me develop my hobbies into my way of living, my life style.
His interviews and books introduced me to transcendental meditation, and made me want to explore my subconscious mind in a way I have never experienced before. Only through his meditations and guidance, I was able to delve deeper into my creativity.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
The most rewarding aspect of being an artist for me is to be able to pour my emotions, my thoughts, and basically my life into the work I create.
As a filmmaker, witnessing the transformation the words I put onto a piece paper to visuals on the screen is the most astonishing feeling ever. I see it as a privilege to be able to create worlds in my mind, and transform these worlds into material life and share it with others.
The feeling of either watching your film’s footage for the first time, hitting that piano note in the right key, or landing that finishing stroke onto a canvas. No matter what the medium is, that feeling is the most magical and unique experience to ever exist.
Contact Info:
- Website: Instagram: @filmbydou
- Instagram: @filmbydou
- Linkedin: Doğu Özorhan
- Other: Kavyar: Dogu Artun https://kavyar.com/dogu-artun IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm14296090/ FilmFreeWay: https://filmfreeway.com/DoguOzorhan
Image Credits
Umut Duran and Cecilia Marty