Exploring Life & Business with Olivier Hero Dressen of Studio Supreme Films

Today we’d like to introduce you to Olivier Hero Dressen.

Hi Olivier, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I’m Olivier Hero Dressen, a Belgian director, cinematographer, photographer and screenwriter. I’ve been making images for over 20 years, and it all started with drawing. I studied animation at La Cambre in Brussels and interned at Folimage. I went on to contribute animation to the Oscar-nominated “A Cat in Paris.”

My first big break came as an illustrator. My Heinz ketchup piece, “Mother and Child,” won a Silver Lion at Cannes in 2007 and made the cover of Archive Magazine. That illustrator’s eye never left me. It’s how I frame every shot today.

In 2013 I founded Studio Supreme in China, and from there I moved fully into directing and creative direction. I’ve directed commercials, music videos and short films for brands like Nike, Porsche, Coach and Converse. In China I was creative director for the launch events of two car brands. For DS, Sophie Marceau was the brand ambassador. For smart, it was Kobe Bryant, and putting one of the tallest athletes in the world inside the smallest car in the city made for an iconic image. My roots are in Belgium, Paris and China, and that mix shows up in everything I make.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It hasn’t been a smooth road. My life today is split between Los Angeles, Shanghai, Bangkok and Dubai. That gives me a rare view of how different cultures tell stories, but it also means constantly rebuilding networks and proving yourself in new markets. Early on, I had to fight to be seen as a director and not only as an illustrator. Now the challenge is growth. I want to expand into new territories, and I want to shoot more in Europe again, where I’ve worked less in recent years.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
I’m a director first, but I also shoot, write and produce, which lets me keep a project’s vision intact from script to final grade. My commercial work includes the HaHa TV spot “Shanghai Playground,” which won a Promax BDA Bronze. One of the most fun shoots I’ve done was “Race Against Time” for XSUIT, an action commercial we shot in the streets of Los Angeles with my friend Paul Darnell, the Emmy-winning stunt performer from The Mandalorian.

On the film side, I run Studio Supreme Films, an independent film company registered in Estonia and China. Our short Kite is the film that has traveled the furthest. It’s the story of a middle-aged foreigner at the end of his rope who meets a little Chinese girl on a remote island, and of how she gives him a reason to live. It’s a film about second chances.

We shot it on Huaniao Island, “Flower and Bird Island,” at the edge of China near Korea, three hours by boat from Shanghai. Only about 300 people live there. We fell in love with the place, the locals became our partners, and the island became a character in the film. We shot for a week in the middle of the China Sea, through storms, rain and 50 km winds, with a tiny crew that became a family.

Kite has won 19 awards from more than 70 festival selections, including Best International Short at the Malibu Film Festival in Los Angeles and Best Director at the Macau International Children’s Film Festival. This year it won Best Short at the Stage 32 competition and opened the Stage 32 session at HollyShorts, an Oscar-qualifying festival. That makes three Stage 32 wins for us, after The Passport and The Black Box, which took the Grand Prize. Our newest short, The Last Child, a sci-fi anti-war film, is now on the festival circuit. I’ve also served on the juries of the Asian Academy Creative Awards and the Phoenix Tree Awards in Hangzhou.

Right now I’m developing several feature films: two written for Thailand and two for the American market. I’m looking for producers and partners who can help bring them to the big screen, reach bigger audiences and, hopefully, win more awards.

We just relaunched https://www.studiosupremefilms.com, where you can explore all our shorts, and our Screening Room will let you stream them in HD anywhere, including mainland China. For the rest of my work, visit https://www.herodirector.tv.

We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
One of my favorite memories is actually a photograph: me as a little kid at the zoo, posing with a monkey. I’ve always loved that picture. Maybe that’s where it started, the idea that a single image can hold a whole story.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.herodirector.tv
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/herodirector.tv
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ThePassportMovie
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/herographics
• Twitter: https://x.com/herodesigner
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/Olivierhero
• Other: https://www.studiosupremefilms.com