Mike Hoolboom

Last updated

Mike Hoolboom
Mike Hoolboom.JPG
Hoolboom, 2011
Born (1959-01-01) 1 January 1959 (age 65)
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Alma mater Sheridan College
OccupationFilm director
Years active1980s–present
Notable work
AwardsGovernor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts

Michael Hoolboom (born 1 January 1959) is a Canadian independent, experimental filmmaker. Having begun filmmaking at an early age, Hoolboom released his first major work, a "film that's not quite a film" entitled White Museum, in 1986. [1] Although he continued to produce films, his rate of production improved drastically after he was diagnosed with HIV in 1988 or 1989; this gave a "new urgency" to his works. [2] Since then he has made dozens of films, two of which have won Best Short Film at the Toronto International Film Festival. His films have also featured in more than 200 film festivals worldwide.

Contents

Early life and career

Hoolboom was born in Toronto, Ontario, to a Dutch father and Dutch-Indonesian mother on 1 January 1959. He took up filmmaking at an early age, using the family's Super 8 camera, [1] and did his high school education in Burlington, Ontario. [3]

In 1980 Hoolboom enrolled at Sheridan College in Oakville, Ontario. During his three years there he became known for his works which, according to Canadian film critic Geoff Pevere, "demonstrated a consuming interest in navigating the outer limits of perception, of language, of self, of mechanical reproduction, of bodily sensation and experience". [1] He found wide accolade in 1986 with the release of a "film that's not quite a film", White Museum, a 32-minute work which spliced audio clips of pop culture media and commentary on the state of film over a clear leader. [1] Many of his films during the late 1980s, such as From Home (1988) and Eat (1989), dealt with various aspects of the body. [1]

Hoolboom, while serving a two-year stint at the Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre, was diagnosed with HIV in 1989, after going to donate blood. In the six years following his diagnosis he made a further 27 films, with his focus changing to the impermanence of existence, sexuality, and HIV/AIDS. [1] [3] This period has been noted as having a "new urgency". [2] He also ran a magazine on fringe films, The Independent Eye. [1]

In the mid-1990s Hoolboom won Best Canadian Short Film at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) twice, first with 1993's Frank's Cock . [2] The eight-minute film dealt with an unnamed man, portrayed by Callum Keith Rennie, who considered himself the "Michael Jordan of sex", losing his lover Frank to AIDS. The story was conveyed with a monologue occupying a quadrant of a four-part split-screen, with other quadrants including popular art, gay pornography, and representations of human creation. [4] When accepting the award at TIFF, Hoolboom quipped "Frank's Cock has never seemed so large". [5] That year also saw the creation of two further works: Valentine's Day, which followed a man who splurged on making a film after being diagnosed with AIDS; and Kanada, in which Wayne Gretzky serves as prime minister and uses broadcast rights for a civil war to pay off the Canada's debt. Robert Everett-Green of The Globe and Mail wrote that Valentine's Day was reminiscent of the works of Marquis de Sade and the 1973 French/Italian film La Grande Bouffe . [5]

Three years later, in 1996, Hoolboom released Letters From Home , based in part on a speech by LGBT rights activist Vito Russo. The 15-minute film features commentary on popular misconceptions of AIDS and ways that the general public deal with AIDS patients before ending on an optimistic note, expressing hope that the AIDS crisis would one day be over. [4] In 1998 he released the feature-length film Panic Bodies, a six-part work dealing with aspects of the body which, according to Hoolboom, is fragmented like AIDS fragments the body. That year he also released Plague Years: A Life in Underground Movies, a book which blends aspects of film scripts and autobiographical writing. [3]

A four-minute film tribute to Hoolboom by Wrik Mead, entitled Hoolboom, was sponsored by Arts Toronto and debuted in 1999. [6] The following year Hoolboom released Inside the Pleasure Dome: Fringe Film in Canada, a series of 23 interviews with Canadian fringe filmmakers regarding the industry, with a foreword by Atom Egoyan. [7]

Later film work

Hoolboom made Tom , a biopic of the New York-based avant-garde filmmaker Tom Chomont, in 2002, using layering to explore themes common in Chomont's work while exploring the latter's sometimes-incestuous relationship with his brother. [4] This was followed by Imitations of Life, a ten-segmented film which, through the reuse of film clips from mainstream media, deals with how film and popular culture can affect one's memory. [4] He helped establish Fringe Online, which presents fringe works by Canadian directors, in 2004. [8] Hoolboom released his debut novel, The Steve Machine, in 2008; he had previously published several non-fiction works. [9]

In 2009 Hoolboom received the Bell Award in Video Art, presented by the Canada Council for the Arts for "exceptional contribution to the advancement of video art and practices in Canada". [8] That year he released the book Practical Dreamers: Conversations with Movie Artists, which profiled 27 Canadian independent film artists, [10] and made Mark , a look into the life of his friend, political activist and filmmaker Mark Karbusicky, which combined the found footage and biography genres. [11]

In 2014 an International Jury composed by Eva Truffaut, Benjamin Cantu, ricci/forte, Manuele Fior and Mathilde Bayle awarded his Buffalo Death Mask as best short film in the International Competition Queer Short of Sicilia Queer filmfest.

In 2016 Hoolboom and Chase Joynt coauthored the non-fiction book You Only Live Twice: Sex, Death and Transition. [12] The book received a Lambda Literary Award nomination for Transgender Non-Fiction at the 29th Lambda Literary Awards in 2017. [13]

Reception

Cameron Bailey, writing in the Canadian fashion magazine Flare , described Hoolboom as "Canada's most important avant-garde filmmaker since Michael Snow"; [2] Liam Lacey, writing for The Globe and Mail, echoes the description, adding that Hoolboom is also "one of the best chroniclers of other fringe filmmakers". [3] His works had been shown at over 200 film festivals by 1998. [3]

Awards

Hoolboom was awarded a Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts in 2017. [14]

Filmography

Hoolboom has released more than fifty films in the course of his career. However, the exact number is uncertain because he regularly "prunes and reshapes his filmography: cutting some films, merging others and completely removing others from circulation." [1] The CBC notes that several of his films have been completely destroyed. [8]

Bibliography

Non-Fiction

Fiction

Related Research Articles

James Motluk born in Brockville, Ontario, Canada, is a filmmaker of Ukrainian descent. After studying philosophy at Trent University he travelled to Toronto and worked for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as an assistant director on a television show called Seeing Things. He wrote and directed his first feature film called Nasty Burgers which was released to cinemas in 1993. Nasty Burgers gained him entry into the Writers Guild of Canada. For much of the 1990s he worked as a writer for television. His credits included a season on the hit show Road to Avonlea.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Inside Out Film and Video Festival</span>

The Inside Out Film and Video Festival, also known as the Inside Out LGBT or LGBTQ Film Festival, is an annual Canadian film festival, which presents a program of LGBT-related film. The festival is staged in both Toronto and Ottawa. Founded in 1991, the festival is now the largest of its kind in Canada. Deadline dubbed it "Canada’s foremost LGBTQ film festival."

Jeffrey Scott Beaven, known professionally by his pen name Jay Scott, was a Canadian film critic.

Jubal Brown is a video producer and multi-media artist based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He gained notoriety in 1996 when he deliberately vomited primary colours on paintings in the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

The Art of Woo is a 2001 Canadian romantic comedy film written and directed by Helen Lee and starring Sook-Yin Lee and Adam Beach.

Phillip Barker is a Canadian production designer, filmmaker and visual artist based in Toronto, Ontario.

Earl Pastko is an American actor known for his roles in theatre, film and television.

<i>Gambling, Gods and LSD</i> 2002 documentary film by Peter Mettler

Gambling, Gods and LSD is a 2002 Canadian/Swiss experimental documentary film by Canadian film director Peter Mettler. It was shot between 1997 and 1999 in Canada, the United States, Switzerland and India, and is a "fragmented narrative" that shows what people do to discover themselves and find happiness.

Philip Hoffman is a Canadian experimental filmmaker and a member of the faculty of York University.

Helen Lee is a Korean-Canadian film director. Born in Seoul, South Korea, she emigrated to Canada at the age of four and grew up in Scarborough, Ontario. Interested in film at a young age, she took film studies at the University of Toronto and, later, New York University. While in university she was influenced by gender and minority theories, as reflected in her first film, the short Sally's Beauty Spot (1990). While continuing her studies she produced two more films before taking a five-year hiatus to live in Korea beginning in 1995. After her return, she released another short film and her feature film debut, The Art of Woo (2001). She continues to produce films, although at a reduced rate. Lee's films often deal with gender and racial issues, reflecting the state of East Asians in modern society; a common theme in her work is sexuality, with several films featuring interracial relationships.

<i>Franks Cock</i> 1993 short film by Mike Hoolboom

Frank's Cock is a 1993 Canadian short film written and directed by Mike Hoolboom. The eight-minute production stars Callum Keith Rennie as an unnamed narrator who discusses his relationship with his partner, Frank. The two met while the narrator was a teenager and spent nearly ten years together. Frank has since been diagnosed with AIDS, and the narrator fears his death. The story was based on the experience of one of Hoolboom's friends at People With AIDS, which Hoolboom adapted after receiving a commission to create a short film about breaking up.

Letters from Home is a 15-minute-long short film by Canadian director Mike Hoolboom. It follows a multitude of figures from the Toronto art community who deliver messages about living with AIDS, which are spliced with home videos, found and archive footage, and other film techniques. Letters from Home was generally well received and won several awards, including Best Canadian Short Film at the 1996 Toronto International Film Festival.

Brian D. Johnson is a Canadian journalist and filmmaker, best known as an entertainment reporter and film critic for Maclean's.

Steve Reinke is a Canadian video artist and filmmaker.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daniel Cockburn</span> Canadian filmmaker and performance artist

Daniel Ernest Cockburn is a Canadian performance artist, film director and video artist. Cockburn won the Jay Scott Prize in 2010 and the European Media Art Festival's principal award in 2011 for his debut feature film You Are Here.

<i>Tom</i> (2002 film) 2002 Canadian film

Tom is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Mike Hoolboom and released in 2002. The film is a portrait of underground filmmaker Tom Chomont.

<i>Metronome</i> (film) 2002 experimental short film

Metronome is a 2002 Canadian short experimental film which mixes appropriated film clips and video by video artist Daniel Cockburn to express ideas about rhythm and order, the self and other minds, and the digital age. Densely philosophical, the work is acknowledged as his international "breakout hit" after several locally successful short works, winning praise from critics, a mention, and an award.

<i>You Are In a Maze of Twisty Little Passages, All Different</i> 2009 Canadian film

You Are In a Maze of Twisty Little Passages, All Different: Films and Videos by Daniel Cockburn is a 2009 Canadian experimental film anthology consisting of a curated programme of eleven short films by video artist Daniel Cockburn.

Stupid Coalescing Becomers is a 2004 Canadian short darkly comic experimental film by video artist Daniel Cockburn about time running backwards as an act of rebellion.

Chase Joynt is a Canadian filmmaker, writer, video artist, actor, and professor. He attracted acclaim as co-director with Aisling Chin-Yee of the documentary film No Ordinary Man (2020), and as director of the film Framing Agnes (2022). He won two awards at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival for his work on the latter.

References

Footnotes

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 TIFF, Mike Hoolboom.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Bailey 1997, Movies...
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Lacey 1998, Portrait of the Filmmaker.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Cole 2003/2004, From Frank's Cock.
  5. 1 2 Everett-Green 1995, A Pauper Prince.
  6. ↑ Mead, Hoolboom.
  7. ↑ CHB, Inside the Pleasure Dome.
  8. 1 2 3 CBC 2009, Toronto fringe filmmaker.
  9. ↑ UBC, Mike Hoolboom.
  10. ↑ King 2009, 'Fringe' filmmakers profiled.
  11. ↑ Jones 2010, InsideOut: Mike Hoolboom.
  12. ↑ Jade Colbert, "Review: New books from Eleanor Wachtel, Chase Joynt and Mike Hoolboom". The Globe and Mail , 12 May 2016.
  13. ↑ "M.E. Girard, Vivek Shraya among 13 Canadians nominated for 2017 Lambda Literary Awards". Quill & Quire , 14 March 2017.
  14. ↑ Canada Council for the Arts. "Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts: Mike Hoolboom, Filmmaker" . Retrieved 16 February 2017.

Works cited

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.