Gregg Araki is an American filmmaker. He is noted for his heavy involvement with the New Queer Cinema movement. His film Kaboom (2010) was the first winner of the Cannes Film Festival Queer Palm.
"New queer cinema" is a term first coined by the academic B. Ruby Rich in Sight & Sound magazine in 1992 to define and describe a movement in queer-themed independent filmmaking in the early 1990s.
The Doom Generation is a 1995 independent black comedy thriller film co-produced, co-edited, written and directed by Gregg Araki, and starring Rose McGowan, James Duval and Jonathan Schaech. The plot follows two troubled teenage lovers who pick up an adolescent drifter and embark on a journey full of sex, violence, and convenience stores.
The Broken Hearts Club: A Romantic Comedy is a 2000 American romantic comedy drama film written and directed by Greg Berlanti. It follows the lives of a group of gay friends in West Hollywood, centered on a restaurant owned by the fatherly Jack and the softball team he sponsors. The friends rely on each other for friendship and support as they search for love, deal with loss, and discover themselves.
Nowhere is a 1997 American black comedy drama film written and directed by Gregg Araki. Described by Araki as "Beverly Hills 90210 on acid", the film follows a day in the lives of a group of Los Angeles college students and the strange lives that they lead. It stars an ensemble cast led by James Duval and Rachel True.
Jimmy Hollywood is a 1994 American comedy film written and directed by Barry Levinson and starring Joe Pesci and Christian Slater. It was released on April 1, 1994, and was a box office bomb, grossing just $3 million against its $30 million budget. While initially unsuccessful at the box office, it has since gained a cult following.
Mysterious Skin is a 2004 coming-of-age drama film written, produced, and directed by Gregg Araki, adapted from Scott Heim's 1995 novel of the same name. The film tells the story of two pre-adolescent boys who both experienced sexual abuse as children, and how it affects their lives in different ways into their young adulthood. One boy becomes a reckless, sexually adventurous sex worker, while the other retreats into a reclusive fantasy of alien abduction.
Strand Releasing is an American film production company founded in 1989 and is based in Culver City, California. The company has distributed over 300 auteur-driven titles from acclaimed international and American directors such as Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Gregg Araki, François Ozon, Jean-Luc Godard, Catherine Breillat, Claire Denis, Fatih Akin, Aki Kaurismäki, Claude Miller, Manoel de Oliveira, Gaspar Noé, André Téchiné and Terence Davies.
Get Real is a 1998 British romantic comedy-drama film directed by Simon Shore, based on the play What's Wrong with Angry? by screenwriter Patrick Wilde. The plot centres the coming of age of a gay teen while growing up in rural Britain during the Cool Britannia era of the late 1990s. The film was shot and set in and around Basingstoke, England. Get Real has since become a cult classic among fans of queer cinema.
James Edward Duval is an American actor. He is known for his roles in Independence Day (1996), Go (1999), Donnie Darko (2001), May (2002), and the films of Gregg Araki.
Smiley Face is a 2007 American-German stoner comedy film directed and co-produced by Gregg Araki. Written by Dylan Haggerty, it stars Anna Faris as a young woman who has a series of misadventures after eating cupcakes laced with cannabis. The supporting cast includes Danny Masterson, John Krasinski, Adam Brody, Jayma Mays, Marion Ross, Jane Lynch, and Roscoe Lee Browne in his final film. Smiley Face was the ninth feature film directed by Araki.
Pedro Almodóvar Caballero is a Spanish film director and screenwriter. His films are marked by melodrama, irreverent humour, bold colour, glossy décor, quotations from popular culture, and complex narratives. Desire, LGBT issues, passion, family, and identity are among Almodóvar's most prevalent subjects in his films. Acclaimed as one of the most internationally successful Spanish filmmakers, Almodóvar and his films have gained worldwide interest and developed a cult following.
The Living End is a 1992 American comedy-drama film by Gregg Araki. Described by some critics as a "gay Thelma & Louise," the film is an early entry in the New Queer Cinema genre. The Living End was nominated for a Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 1992.
Andrea Sperling is an independent film producer based in Los Angeles. The films she has produced include Totally Fucked Up, But I'm a Cheerleader, D.E.B.S. and Itty Bitty Titty Committee and the Sundance Top Prize-winning Like Crazy.
Kaboom is a 2010 science fiction sex comedy mystery film written and directed by Gregg Araki and starring Thomas Dekker, Juno Temple, Haley Bennett, and James Duval. The film centers on the sexual adventures of a group of college students and their investigation of a bizarre cult.
Killer Films is a New York City-based independent film production company founded in 1995 by film producers Christine Vachon and Pamela Koffler. The company has produced many acclaimed independent films over the past two decades including Far From Heaven, Boys Don't Cry, One Hour Photo, Kids, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Happiness, Velvet Goldmine, Safe, I Shot Andy Warhol, Swoon, I'm Not There, Kill Your Darlings, Still Alice and Carol. Killer Films also executive produced Todd Haynes' five episode HBO miniseries Mildred Pierce, which went on to win five Emmys, a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild Award.
Sequin in a Blue Room is a 2019 Australian independent queer coming-of-age, mystery and drama film directed by Samuel Van Grinsven, in his feature film debut. It was written by Van Grinsven and Jory Anast. The film stars Conor Leach in his feature film debut, Simon Croker, Anthony Brandon Wong and Jeremy Lindsay Taylor. It had its world premiere on 14 June 2019 at the Sydney Film Festival, where it won an award for Best Narrative Feature, and was released in theatres in August 2020. The film received generally wide acclaim, and American review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes certified the film fresh with a score of 92%. It was filmed on location in Sydney.
Bubble is a 2022 Japanese animated post-apocalyptic film produced by Wit Studio. It is directed by Tetsurō Araki and written by Gen Urobuchi, and features character designs by Takeshi Obata and music composed by Hiroyuki Sawano. The film had early screenings at the Berlin International Film Festival on February 10, 2022. It was followed by its worldwide release on Netflix on April 28, 2022, before it was released theatrically in Japan in May. A manga adaptation of the film by Erubo Hijihara was serialized in Shōnen Jump+ from April 22 to May 23, 2022.
