Curiosity Becomes Filmmaker

When people ask Emre Izat ’99 what he does as an executive producer, he replies: “I’m curious for a living.” To satisfy that trait, Izat has filmed on six continents, explored uncharted limestone gorges in Mozambique, and shouldered crocodiles Down Under as a documentary filmmaker. University of Mary Washington nurtured Izat’s inquisitive nature. After high school in Alexandria, Va., he selected Mary Washington because it allowed him to build his own curriculum and pursue the dramatic arts without sacrificing his love of literature and physics. And UMW’s black box theater appealed to him because he could get onstage right away. In fact, Izat said, he “kind of lived in the theater” at Mary Washington − there’s a police brief in The Bullet archives to prove it. One night, he was rehearsing on the Klein Theatre main stage while directing a show in the black box theater. A professor had asked him to speak to a drama class the next morning, so when Izat found himself still working … [Read more...]