Gozde Efe
Gözde Efe
Over the last fifteen years, I have built an untraditional career, from the academy to cinematography to directing, teaching and social entrepreneurship, serving good causes. I create media products—short videos, photographic essays, short documentaries, sound pieces, visual presentations—and more, from conception to completion.
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Here is a little story-like traditional resume
2011
Bachelor's Degree, Communication Sciences, Film
Families in Eastern Turkey kept their young girls from School. In 2010, I earned a bachelor's degree in filmmaking with a thesis documentary that told their stories.
2012-2016
Research Assistant, Communication Sciences, Film
A year later, I was hired by the School of Communications as a research assistant. During my time as a scholar at Anadolu University, I was also awarded documentary funds by various organizations to direct;
The Vineyard, Izmir, Turkey, 2014
story of an older man refusing to leave his land fighting government authorities against urbanization
Le Cyrano, Strasbourg, FR, 2013
Broken, Lesvos, Greece, 2013
Telling the story of a family fled to France from Turkey in the 1980s
a lighthearted short documentary about the Greek and Turk on shared culture while touching the experiences of heavy population exchange in 1920s.
2013-2016
Master of Fine Arts, Film, San Francisco Art Institute
After a few work visits to the Bay Area, I developed a strong interest in conceptual art. Intertwined with my research scholarship, I attended the San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) MFA in Film, graduating in 2016. I spent two years focusing on different art forms, including video mapping, sound installations, interactive multimedia pieces, experience designs, performance art, and more. This experience opened up my mind and changed me forever.
2014-present
Freelance Director, Editor, San Francisco Bay Area
I not only taught during my time as a research assistant but also at SFAI as a teaching assistant. Teaching was learning.
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Returning to the Bay Area, I started working on producing multimedia content with Dr. Joon Yun and his team to support the media outreach efforts, supply archival still and moving image content, and grow an online presence. Dr. Yun is the president and managing partner of the hedge fund Palo Alto Investors, LP, founded in 1989; it has approximately $2 billion in assets invested in healthcare. He and Kimberly Bazar launched the Palo Alto Longevity Prize and donated $2 million to support the National Academy of Medicine's Longevity Grand Challenge. I worked in the field setting up, filming, photographing, interviewing, sound recording, archiving, and, at times, managing other cinematographers and crew members at various larger panels, workshops, closed-to-press events, and activities until the end of 2019. During that time, I kept my teaching at a shallow level.
2014-continuing
Freelance Director, Editor, San Francisco Area
At the beginning of 2020, I was inspired to work with children in conceptual art. While still working in the field for various Bay Area start-ups, I also launched a conceptual art program at a Montessori School in San Francisco. Then, the pandemic happened.
The power of video communication has become more crucial than ever.
During the pandemic, the Kids & Art Foundation paused its programs, bringing art experiences to hospital rooms for children facing cancer. Like many other organizations, it reimagined itself. From 2021 to 2023, I produced and edited all its videos delivered to children in hospitals, pre-recorded online workshops and art experience videos, gathered archives to help structure stories, and shot and edited videos facing many challenges.
In 2021, I was hired by SFFILM as communications project manager for the 64th International San Francisco Film Festival, which ran online for the first time. Later that year, I took another role as a marketing designer, mainly helping with web and graphic design at the 44th Mill Valley Film Festival and editing videos again at the 46th Mill Valley Film Festival in 2023 and 47th Mill Valley Film Festival in 2024.
2023
San Francisco Bay Area
In 2023, I began to get my interest back in documentary filmmaking and launched Safe and Presidio-living. In 2024, I founded The Seeing School, the Bay Area's only conceptual learning institution for all ages.
And that's a small part of what I was up to in the last fifteen years.
Me at the San Francisco Art Institute MFA Graduation Exhibit 2016
San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) and its people changed my life. It's known for pushing and breaking the boundaries and that's exactly what it did to me. I will be forever grateful for the experience: the freedom, inspiration, pushing and breaking boundaries within myself and my work.