OGO FILMS

Joe Otting is a director who finds the cinematic in the everyday. Across film and commercial work, he brings an honest, richly detailed eye to the ordinary world — forming a personal connection to every project and creating journeys that both entertain and touch the heart.

His film roots reach back to the award-winning short "The Third Rail," a Cannes Festival Kodak Selection that topped 2.5 million downloads on its release in Japan, and to HBO's Project Greenlight, where his Kafkaesque thriller "Asylum" earned acclaim as a series runner-up. Features followed: "Already Dead," a suspense thriller for Sony Pictures starring Academy Award winner Christopher Plummer, and "Under New Management," a crime comedy with Emmy-nominated Chris Diamantopoulos that viewers voted #1 after its Showtime premiere. Woody Allen praised the film as "funny, touching… well directed and beautifully shot," and Martin Scorsese observed, "It reminds me of that sub-genre of films in the 1940s at Warner Brothers: the comic-gangster film."

That same instinct for the human and the everyday drives his shorts. "Vows," winner of the Entertainment Weekly Magazine Short Film, Big Screen Contest, played to over 2 million viewers in Loews Theatres nationwide, and his slice-of-life short "The Talk" premiered at Cinequest to enthusiastic praise for its cinematic craft and side-splitting humor. A Vimeo Staff Pick, it soon passed 215,000 views, with critic Clinton Stark calling it "clever, (bitter?) sweet, and the ultimate antidote for the 21st-century-challenged parent."

Joe's directorial career began at one of the world's largest ad agencies, BBDO, and he has kept a parallel course in advertising ever since, running his own commercial production company and working with major national brands. His recent campaign for Whisky Acres Distilling Co. is a high-end, award-winning production he carried from concept through final edit with a crew of five. His commercial work has earned numerous honors, including a recent Gold Hugo for branded content.

Now Joe is preparing his next feature — currently casting, with a notable lead attached.

A DGA member, Joe is repped by Allen Fischer (Artists First) for features, Accomplice Media for U.S. commercials, and Sparks Productions in Canada. He lives in Chicago with his wife and 21-year-old daughter, who says of her dad's work, "It's not Stranger Things — but I like it!"