Joe Swanberg | |
---|---|
Born | Detroit, Michigan, U.S. |
Occupations |
|
Years active | 2005–present |
Notable work | Easy Drinking Buddies |
Spouse | [1] |
Children | 2 |
Website | joeswanberg |
Joe Swanberg is an American independent filmmaker. Known for micro-budget films which make extensive use of improvisation, Swanberg is considered a major figure in the mumblecore film movement. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] His films often focus on relationships, sex, technology, and the filmmaking process. He is also known for his early collaborations with Greta Gerwig. [7]
Swanberg was born in Detroit, Michigan and raised in Georgia and Alabama. [8] He graduated from Naperville Central High School in suburban Chicago and attended Southern Illinois University at Carbondale as a film major, earning a bachelor's degree in 2003. [9] As a teenager, he worked at Hollywood Video. [10]
In 2005, Swanberg write, directed, edited, shot, produced, and starred in Kissing on the Mouth , his first feature film, for a modest budget. He followed it with LOL (2006), which marked Swanberg's first time working with actress Greta Gerwig. Gerwig and Swanberg collaborated on the director's next two features: Hannah Takes the Stairs (2007), which also starred filmmakers Andrew Bujalski, Ry Russo-Young, and Mark Duplass and marked Swanberg's first collaboration with animator and actor Kent Osborne; and Nights and Weekends (2008), on which Gerwig shared a directing credit. Swanberg's next feature, Alexander the Last , was produced by Noah Baumbach, who later cast Gerwig in his 2010 film Greenberg .
After spending all of 2009 working on Silver Bullets , Swanberg finished seven features in 2010: Uncle Kent , Caitlin Plays Herself , The Zone, Art History, Silver Bullets, Privacy Setting and Autoerotic (co-directed with horror filmmaker Adam Wingard). Uncle Kent premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2011 and Silver Bullets and Art History premiered at the Berlinale in February. The rest of the 2010 films premiered theatrically in 2011 after screenings at film festivals. Four of these were later included in Joe Swanberg: Collected Films 2011, a DVD boxed set from the music and video label Factory 25. [11]
In 2012, Swanberg wrote and directed the film Drinking Buddies , starring Olivia Wilde, Jake M. Johnson, Anna Kendrick and Ron Livingston. The film was acquired by Magnolia Pictures shortly after its SXSW premiere.
The following year. Swanberg shot Happy Christmas , starring himself, Melanie Lynskey, Lena Dunham, and Anna Kendrick. This was the first of his films to be shot on 16mm film, rather than digital. [12] The film premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival.
His next film as director was Digging for Fire , [12] which premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival and stars Jake Johnson. [13] The film was released on August 21, 2015, by The Orchard. [14]
Swanberg wrote, directed, and produced Easy, an anthology series for Netflix. The series premiered in 2016 and ran for three seasons ending in 2019. Easy featured many of Swanberg's frequent collaborators from his films, including Jake Johnson, Joe Lo Truglio, and Nicky Excitement.
In 2017, Swanberg and Jake Johnson co-wrote Win It All. Johnson stars with Aislinn Derbez, Joe Lo Truglio and Keegan-Michael Key. The film had its world premiere at South by Southwest on March 11, 2017. It was released on April 7, 2017, by Netflix.
Swanberg is a noted proponent of Internet-based distribution for independent films and has made his 2011 feature Marriage Material available for free on his Vimeo page. [15] He also released his 2020 feature, Build the Wall, starring Kent Osborne and Jane Adams, on his Vimeo page. [16] [17]
In 2021, Swanberg opened Analog Pizza and Video Store, a VHS video rental shop in the back room of Borelli's Pizzeria in Chicago. [10]
In 2024, it was announced that he is working on a slate of five horror-themed feature films for Yale Entertainment. [18] [19]
Swanberg cites Elaine May, Paul Mazursky, Lars von Trier, [3] Marco Ferreri, [3] and Eric Rohmer as primary influences on his work. [3]
Year | Film | Director | Writer | Producer | Editor | Cinematographer | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2005 | Kissing on the Mouth | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
2006 | LOL | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
2007 | Hannah Takes the Stairs | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
2008 | Nights and Weekends | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | co-directed with Greta Gerwig |
2009 | Alexander the Last | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | co-produced with Noah Baumbach |
2010 | 11/4/08 | No | No | No | No | Yes | documentary film |
Open Five | No | No | No | No | Yes | ||
2011 | Uncle Kent | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
Silver Bullets | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | also sound | |
Caitlin Plays Herself | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||
Autoerotic | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | co-directed with Adam Wingard also special make-up effects | |
Art History | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||
The Zone | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||
2012 | V/H/S | Segment Director | No | Segment Producer | Segment Editor | No | segment: "The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger" also sound designer of the segment |
Marriage Material | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | ||
All the Light in the Sky | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||
2013 | Drinking Buddies | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | |
24 Exposures | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | ||
2014 | Happy Christmas | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | |
2015 | Digging for Fire | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | |
2017 | Win It All | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | |
2020 | The Rental | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | |
Build the Wall | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | ||
Year | Film | Role |
---|---|---|
2009 | It Was Great but I Was Ready to Come Home | Producer |
2011 | What Fun We Were Having: 4 Stories About Date Rape | |
2015 | Queen of Earth | producer/associate producer |
Uncle Kent 2 | executive producer | |
Bloomin Mud Shuffle | producer | |
Lace Crater | ||
2016 | Little Sister | executive producer |
2017 | Person to Person | |
Golden Exits | ||
2018 | Madeline's Madeline | |
2019 | Sword of Trust | |
Depraved | ||
Holy Trinity | ||
2023 | The Becomers | producer |
Year | Film | Director | Writer | Producer | Cinematographer | Editor |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2003 | Mikey | Yes | Uncredited | Uncredited | Yes | Uncredited |
2005 | Hissy Fits | Yes | Uncredited | Yes | No | Uncredited |
2006 | Thanks for the Ad! | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
2008 | Swedish Blueballs | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
About Film Festivals | No | No | No | Yes | No | |
Ginger Sand | No | No | No | Yes | No | |
2009 | Birthday Suit | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
One Shot Film | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
2010 | The World of Film Festivals | No | No | No | Yes | No |
2012 | Stray Bullets | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
2013 | Privacy Setting | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Year | Film | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
2005 | Kissing on the Mouth | Patrick | |
Hissy Fits | short film | ||
2006 | LOL | Tim | |
Young American Bodies | Ben | TV series | |
2007 | Hohokam | The Jeffery | |
Quiet City | Adam | ||
Grammy's | Clarence | short film | |
The Timebox Twins | Boy | ||
2008 | Untied Strangers | Wes | |
Present Company | Archibald King | ||
Nights and Weekends | James | ||
Paintbrush | Danny | short film | |
2009 | You Wont Miss Me | ||
Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever | Hazmat Team | ||
The Mountain, the River and the Road | Tom | ||
2010 | Everyone Says I Look Just Like Her | Brandon | |
A Horrible Way to Die | Kevin | ||
Blackmail Boys | Andrew Kenneth Tucker | ||
Audrey the Trainwreck | Jeremy Roth | ||
2011 | Uncle Kent | Joe | |
Silver Bullets | Ethan | ||
Caitlin Plays Herself | Joe | ||
Autoerotic | [ citation needed ] | ||
Art History | Sam | ||
You're Next | Drake Davison | ||
The Zone | Joe | ||
2012 | The Kings of Yorktown | Bartender | |
V/H/S | Sam | segment: "Second Honeymoon" | |
Marriage Material | Joe | medium-length film | |
2013 | Detonator | Sid | |
Drinking Buddies | Angry Car Guy | ||
White Reindeer | George | ||
The Sacrament | Jake | ||
Proxy | Patrick Michaels | ||
2014 | Happy Christmas | Jeff | |
Thou Wast Mild and Lovely | Akin | ||
Empire Builder | The Husband | ||
Journeyman | Jake Hopkins | short film | |
2015 | There | Toth | |
Uncle Kent 2 | Joe | ||
Bloomin Mud Shuffle | Brock | ||
Lace Crater | Dean | ||
2016 | Joshy | Aaron | |
2017 | XX | Singing Panda | segment "The Birthday Party" |
2018 | Nobody Likes You as Much as I Do | Pauly | Short film |
2021 | Offseason | George Darrow |
Year | Film | Director | Writer | Producer | Editor | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2006–2009 | Young American Bodies | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | 23 episodes webseries also creator, cinematographer and camera operator |
2014 | Looking | Yes | No | No | No | episode "Looking in the Mirror" |
2016–2017 | Love | Yes | No | No | No | 3 episodes |
2016–2019 | Easy | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | 25 episodes Also creator |
2019 | Soundtrack | Yes | No | No | No | 2 episodes |
Andrew Bujalski is an American film director, screenwriter and actor, who has been called the "godfather of mumblecore."
LOL is a 2006 independent mumblecore film by Joe Swanberg that examines the impact of technology on social relations. It is an improvised film that premiered in 2006 at the South By Southwest Film Festival and was later released on DVD.
Kris Swanberg is an American businesswoman, filmmaker, actress and former high school teacher living in Chicago, Illinois. She has been credited at various times as Kris Williams, Kris Swanberg and Kris Rey. Her works as a director include the short documentary Bathwater (2006), the Nerve.com documentary web series Boys and Girls and the feature films It Was Great, But I Was Ready to Come Home (2009), Empire Builder (2012), Unexpected (2015) and I Used to Go Here (2020). She has also had small roles in a number of films, including First Man (2018).
Mumblecore is a subgenre of independent film characterized by naturalistic acting and dialogue, low budgets, an emphasis on dialogue over plot, and a focus on the personal relationships of young adults. Filmmakers associated with the genre include Andrew Bujalski, Lynn Shelton, the Duplass brothers Mark and Jay, Greta Gerwig, Aaron Katz, Joe Swanberg, and Ry Russo-Young. In many cases, though, these directors reject the term. The genre is a mostly American phenomenon. The related term mumblegore has been used for films mixing the mumblecore and horror genres.
Aaron Katz is an American independent filmmaker from Portland, Oregon.
Hannah Takes the Stairs is a 2007 American independent mumblecore film by Joe Swanberg. It has been described "as the defining movie of the low-budget, dialogue-driven 'mumblecore' movement."
Young American Bodies is an American web series, which originally premiered on Nerve.com and aired on IFC and at IFC.com in the United States until 2009.
Adam Wingard is an American filmmaker. He has served as a film director, producer, screenwriter, editor, cinematographer, actor, and composer on numerous American films.
Greta Celeste Gerwig is an American actress, screenwriter, and film director. Initially known for working on various mumblecore films, she has since expanded from acting in and co-writing independent films to directing major studio films. Gerwig was included in the annual Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world in 2018.
Nights and Weekends is a 2008 American mumblecore film written, directed, co-produced by and starring Joe Swanberg and Greta Gerwig. The film follows a long-distance relationship and its aftermath.
Uncle Kent is a 2011 American film directed by Joe Swanberg and written by Kent Osborne and Swanberg. The film stars Osborne in the title role of Kent, and Jennifer Prediger, Josephine Decker, Kevin Bewersdof, and Swanberg. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and was released through video on demand, the same day on January 21, 2011.
Silver Bullets is a 2011 American psychological thriller film written and directed by Joe Swanberg. The film stars Kate Lyn Sheil, Ti West, Swanberg and Amy Seimetz. It is one of six films released by Swanberg in 2011. The film had its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival on February 12, 2011, and was then released in a limited release on October 28, 2011, by Factory25.
Kent Matthew Osborne is an American screenwriter, actor, animator, producer, and director. He has worked for such animated television shows as SpongeBob SquarePants, Camp Lazlo, Phineas and Ferb, The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack, Adventure Time, Regular Show and The Amazing World of Gumball, he has received multiple Emmy Award nominations and has won twice for Adventure Time. He was the head writer for the Cartoon Network animated series Summer Camp Island, which premiered in 2018, and is also co-producer and story editor for the Disney Channel animated series Kiff. He has also starred in several mumblecore films, including Hannah Takes the Stairs, Nights and Weekends, All the Light in the Sky and Uncle Kent. His brother is the director Mark Osborne. Osborne had replaced Walt Dohrn as a storyboard director and writer after Dohrn left SpongeBob to work on more DreamWorks films in 2002.
Drinking Buddies is a 2013 American comedy-drama film written, directed and edited by Joe Swanberg, and starring Olivia Wilde, Jake Johnson, Anna Kendrick and Ron Livingston. The film is about two co-workers at a craft brewery in Chicago.
Happy Christmas is a 2014 American independent dramedy film, written, produced and directed by Joe Swanberg. It stars Swanberg, Anna Kendrick, Melanie Lynskey, Mark Webber, and Lena Dunham. Like most of Swanberg's previous features, the film's dialogue was entirely improvised.
Sophia Takal is an American actress, writer and director, perhaps best known for her work in independent features such as All the Light in the Sky, Supporting Characters and Gabi on the Roof in July. Filmmaker magazine named Takal one of the "25 New Faces of Film" in 2011. She directed and co-wrote the 2019 remake of the 1974 horror film Black Christmas.
24 Exposures is a 2013 erotic thriller film written and directed by Joe Swanberg. It stars Adam Wingard as a fetish photographer who becomes involved in a murder mystery and Simon Barrett as the detective who investigates the crime. IFC Midnight distributed it on January 24, 2014, in a limited release and through video on demand.
Digging for Fire is a 2015 American comedy-drama film directed by Joe Swanberg and co-written by Swanberg and Jake Johnson. It stars an ensemble cast led by Johnson, Rosemarie DeWitt, Brie Larson, Sam Rockwell, Anna Kendrick, Orlando Bloom and Mike Birbiglia. Johnson and DeWitt play a married couple who find a gun and a bone in the backyard of a house they are staying in.
Easy is an American comedy-drama television anthology series written, directed, edited and produced by Joe Swanberg. It consists of 25 half-hour episodes. The series is set in Chicago.
Win It All is a 2017 American comedy film co-written, directed and edited by Joe Swanberg. Jake Johnson, who co-wrote the screenplay, stars alongside Aislinn Derbez, Joe Lo Truglio and Keegan-Michael Key.
Though born in Detroit, Swanberg has lived "in Illinois since just before high school." A high school buddy in Naperville...