Abdullah Oğuz

Abdullah Oğuz — Biography

Abdullah Oğuz works in Turkish television and cinema as both producer and director, with a wide body of work running from commercials and game-show formats to music videos and big box-office films. He is the founder of ANS Prodüksiyon and holds six Golden Butterfly Awards in total. In recent years his name has been attached to projects such as Mezarlık, Zaferin Rengi and the Ahmet Ümit adaptation İstanbul Hatırası.

Born in Istanbul, he attended Vefa High School and Marmara University's Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, then went to the United States. In 1983 he founded ANS International in New York; a video catalogue he developed for a mail-order company produced 65 percent more sales than the magazine version and made the front page of the Wall Street Journal. In 1992 he set up ANS's Turkish arm. A partnership with Fremantle International brought seventeen game shows to Turkey in two years; Çarkıfelek and the first Turkish sitcom, Evdeki Yabancı, belong to this period. His music video for Demet Sağıroğlu's Arnavut Kaldırımı is regarded as the starting point of the Turkish video-clip industry.

In film he produced O Şimdi Asker, Mustafa Hakkında Her Şey and Bir Tutam Baharat; he produced and directed Asmalı Konak: Hayat and O Şimdi Mahkum, and directed and produced Mutluluk, based on Zülfü Livaneli's novel.