Ali Özturk is a writer, director, and cinematographer based in The Hague, Netherlands, and the founder of Yūgen Films — an independent production company dedicated to narrative shorts, features, and documentaries.

Born in Hamburg with a congenital heart defect, he spent his early childhood indoors, immersed in stacks of VHS tapes that shaped his understanding of storytelling. At fifteen, he shot his first short film and won festival prizes. After a decade-long career as a Creative Director in the design and tech industries, he left the commercial world behind to return to filmmaking full-time and founded Yūgen Films in 2023. His work is driven by a simple conviction: in a time when anything can be generated, the most meaningful thing you can do is make something irreducibly human.