Meet Loic Zimmermann | Film-maker & visual artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Loic Zimmermann and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Loic, we’d love to hear about how you approach risk and risk-taking.
Safe can be synonym to slow death, and I believe it’s true for most things, not just creative endeavors.
If you don’t put yourself through some kind of challenge, you don’t evolve. Risk is an openness to failure, and the growth that follows if you have the discipline to get back on your feet.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
Although I knew from the youngest age that art would be at the center of my life, the how and the what were hard to grasp. To get to where I am today was a very weird trek and if this wasn’t the most efficient way to get from point A to point B, it allowed me to grow and build a fun set of skills that shaped my body of work and visual sensibility.

When I was in Art school, a teacher told us not think of those classrooms and disciplines as separate entities, to take what we had learned here to the next class, and to the next, and slowly build our own artistic ecosystem. I love this concept. My films and photographs are fed by years of practice in illustration, painting, graphic design and art history. The way I collaborate with people on set certainly benefited from my teaching experience. The visual flair of my screenplays is directly tied to how I perceive the world on a sensory level.

We tend to compartmentalize things, and it may help unlocking certain things at times, but ultimately, it’s all about the great mish-mash.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
The first thing I’d do is get us out of that LAX inferno and relax on the patio at my house. We’d sip an old fashion and watch the sunset on the Griffith mountains. The next day I’d take them to Los Feliz for a brunch at Figaro and check this charming bookstore next door called Skylight.
We’d have to eat in K-Town a few times and I’d show them some of the cool buildings in Hancock Park, were I used to live.
DTLA is mandatory, at least on a Michael Mann standpoint… I’d preach a freakishly early drive to Venice via Sunset Blvd, before it gets stupid. My first visit to LA was in December. The company who brought me over had booked a hotel on the boardwalk. The boardwalk at 10pm was… shady to say the least, but when I went for a walk at 6am, I was blown away by the beauty of the place, the soothing feel of the ocean, the calm… By 8am, the place had turned to a zoo.
The Hammer, LACMA, the Getty… Coffee here and there. Head out to In Sheep’s Clothing for a cocktail. Make them jealous with the incredible food offering of the city. I’m certainly not the best guide but I would show them those pockets of beauty hiding in plain sight. That’s LA.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
It’d be unfair to focus on one person, or book, or organization only.
I’ve been blessed to grow up in an environment that forced me to develop my own imagination, for there wasn’t much around for entertainment. Blessed to have been kicked in the butt by a psycho rigid father so I wouldn’t take any artistic pre conditions for granted. Blessed to have crossed the path of a few good souls that believed in me and helped me at key moments of my life – which happened again very recently. Blessed to have built friendships that survive the passage of time and make me feel less lonely in the dark of the night.

Website: https://www.loiczimmermann.com

Instagram: loic_zimmermann

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/loiczimmermann/

Twitter: certainly not

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@loiczimmermann

Image Credits
Loic Zimmermann