Lunchfilm

Cam Archer

Cam Archer (born 1982) is an American independent filmmaker and photographer residing in Santa Cruz, California. His feature debut, Wild Tigers I Have Known, premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. The film was executive produced by American filmmaker Gus Van Sant, who had previously executive produced the documentary Tarnation. The film follows a 13-year old boy coming to terms with being gay, and was photographed by frequent Archer collaborator Aaron Platt, whose work earned a Best Cinematography nomination at the 2007 Independent Spirit Awards.

Archer has also directed numerous short films and music videos, including work for Xiu Xiu, Zero 7, Pantaleimon and Six Organs of Admittance. —Wikipedia

Sharon Lockhart

Born 1964 in Norwood, Massachusetts. The American artist and filmmaker studied at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, and at the San Francisco Art Institute. She lives and works in Los Angeles. Her work has been shown in numerous exhibitions and screenings in America, Europe and in Japan and has won many awards. Lockhart is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Asian Cultural Council. Her films NO and TEATRO AMAZONAS both screened at the Berlinale, Forum of New Cinema. In February 2006, her work, PINE FLAT, was shown at the Berlinale within the context of Forum expanded, the new platform for video art and installations, hosted by Forum and KW Institute for Contemporary Art. —Split Film Festival

Nina Menkes

Menkes’s films have shown widely in major international film festivals including Sundance, Rotterdam, Locarno, London, Viennale, San Francisco, Berlin, Cairo, Toronto,as well as at La Cinematheque Francaise, The British Film Institute, the ICA in London, the Beijing Film Academy in China, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, MOCA and LACMA in Los Angeles. Menkes’ many honors include a Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, two Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, an Annenberg Foundation Independent Media Grant, an American Film Institute Independent Filmmaker Award, three Western States Regional Media Arts Fellowships and two Senior Fulbright Research Awards—one to the Middle East/North Africa, and one to India. In addition, her work has been listed on many periodicals “Top Ten Films of the Year” lists, including Film Comment and, repeatedly, The Los Angeles Times. Her feature length, experimental documentary… read more

Martha Colburn

Martha Colburn is a filmmaker and multimedia artist. Born in Pennsylvania, she now lives and works between Holland and New York City. Although Ms. Colburn’s style is unmistakably her own, the scope of her work is broad and difficult to encapsulate; her expertise (especially in stop-motion animation) have led to teaching, speaking, and lectures at film forums and universities worldwide.

A 1994 BFA graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, Maryland, Ms. Colburn also studied for two years at Rijksakademie Van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam, earning an MFA equivalent in 2002.

As she began to make films in 1994, Ms. Colburn performed live with a combination of 16mm and Super-8 projectors, using mirrors, colored gels, strobing devices, and hand-painted screens, with the live accompaniment of musicians. Initially, the majority of Ms. Colburn’s films were videos for musical groups in which she and her friends played. The remainder of the 1990s saw Ms. Colburn… read more

Martha Colburn is a filmmaker and multimedia artist. Born in Pennsylvania, she now lives and works between Holland and New York City. Although Ms. Colburn’s style is unmistakably her own, the scope of her work is broad and difficult to encapsulate; her expertise (especially in stop-motion animation) have led to teaching, speaking, and lectures at film forums and universities worldwide.

A 1994 BFA graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, Maryland, Ms. Colburn also studied for two years at Rijksakademie Van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam, earning an MFA equivalent in 2002.

As she began to make films in 1994, Ms. Colburn performed live with a combination of 16mm and Super-8 projectors, using mirrors, colored gels, strobing devices, and hand-painted screens, with the live accompaniment of musicians. Initially, the majority of Ms. Colburn’s films were videos for musical groups in which she and her friends played. The remainder of the 1990s saw Ms. Colburn appearing in film festivals and workfilm tours, networking and presenting her films across Europe and the United States. In 1997, Ms. Colburn received her first awards: the Kenneth Patchen Award at the National Poetry Film Festival, and the Jury’s Choice Award at the Super Super-8 Film Festival; the following year, she won the Jury’s Choice Award for No-Budget Filmmaking at the International Hamburg Short Film Festival in Hamburg, Germany. Concurrently, she worked as a visiting Professor of Animation at the San Francisco Art Institute. In 1999, she received the honor of Best Animated Film at in both New York and Chicago Underground Film Festivals.

Ms. Colburn left Baltimore in 2000 to study at Rijksakademie, assisted with a grant from Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science. During her time there, she began producing multimedia art installations. in addition to her continued filmmaking. In 2002, she won two awards—the Sarah Lawrence College Film Award, and Best Animated Film at the Chicago Underground Film Festival. Following graduation from Rijksakademie that same year, Ms. Colburn opted to remain in the Netherlands, finding that it afforded her opportunities and resources to explore process and possibilities. Presenting in both solo and group exhibitions (and receiving an award in 2003 for Best Animated Film at the New York Underground Film Festival), Ms. Colburn also resumed teaching, as a visiting artist/lecturer (Statens Kunstakademi in Oslo, Norway), a workshop host (Nanjing Art Institute in Nanjing, China), or a tutor (Dutch Art Institute in Enschede, the Netherlands).

During this time, Ms. Colburn’s films grew more explicitly humanistic and politically expressive, eschewing the total abstraction of her earlier films, and gravitating toward specific social concerns without compromising her distinct style. She received a Stadsdeel de Baarsjes Grant, as well as support from the Dutch Film Fund, in 2004, and saw significant gains in the public profile of her work. Ms. Colburn provided animation for the feature film The Devil and Daniel Johnson, which won the award of Best Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival. Particularly notable was the induction of Ms. Colburn’s highly topical Cosmetic Emergency to the 2005 Cannes Film Festival.

As a participant in the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council art residency program, in 2005, she began collaborating with musicians (including some former cohorts) in what would become an integral part of her presentation: live accompaniment to her films. These live sound/ musical and film explorations resulted in performances at Museum of Art & Design, The Knitting Factory, Rotterdam Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, artists space and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. From 2008-2010 she created commissions from Creative Time (for the Times Square video screen), Performa ( NY performance art festival) for which she made the futurist themed film ‘One & One is Life’, Electric Literature for a film by the author Diana Wagman, and music video for Serj Tankian, Deerhoof, Friendly Rich and They Might Be Giants.

In 2010 her film Triumph of the Wild was included in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Ms. Colburn’s work is also included in the collections of Mlle Monique Burger (Switzerland), Frans Hals Museum De Hallen (Netherlands), Collection Stedelijik Museum (Amsterdam), Chadha Art Collection (London/Amsterdam) And Dimitris Gigourtakis (Greece), Laurence Dreyfus (Paris), Collection Haak (Eindhoven, Netherlands), Ben & Irene Krohn (USA). —marthacolburn.com

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Ben Russell

Ben Russell is an itinerant photographer, curator, and experimental film/videomaker whose works have screened in spaces ranging from 14th Century Belgian monasteries to 17th Century East Indian Trading Company buildings, police station basements to outdoor punk squats, Japanese cinematheques to Parisian storefronts, and the Sundance Film Festival to the Museum of Modern Art (solo). He has made films about the assassination of Easter Island, the divining powers of Richard Pryor, and the end of the world. A Guggenheim Fellowship recipient in 2008, he began The Magic Lantern screening series in Providence, Rhode Island and currently resides in Chicago, Illinois, USA. —gf.org

Bobcat Goldthwait

Robert Francis ‘Bobcat’ Goldthwait, born May 26, 1962, is an American comedian. He is most widely known for his high pitch voice during his comedy acts.

He was born in Syracuse, New York in 1962. He decided on a career as a comedian at an early age and was performing professionally while still in high school at the age of 15. He and classmate Tom Kenny performed in a comedy duo, billing themselves as “Bobcat and Tomcat”. Goldthwait became recognized as a solo stand-up comedian and had three televised concert specials in the 1980s: Bob Goldthwait – Is He Like That All the Time?, Evening with Bobcat Goldthwait: Share the Warmth (1987) (V) and Meat Bob.

Goldthwait’s first major film role was in Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment (1985). He reprised the role in the next two films in the series.

During the fall of 1993 Goldthwait did stand up material as an opening act for Nirvana on what would be their final North American tour.

He has made several guest… read more

Robert Francis ‘Bobcat’ Goldthwait, born May 26, 1962, is an American comedian. He is most widely known for his high pitch voice during his comedy acts.

He was born in Syracuse, New York in 1962. He decided on a career as a comedian at an early age and was performing professionally while still in high school at the age of 15. He and classmate Tom Kenny performed in a comedy duo, billing themselves as “Bobcat and Tomcat”. Goldthwait became recognized as a solo stand-up comedian and had three televised concert specials in the 1980s: Bob Goldthwait – Is He Like That All the Time?, Evening with Bobcat Goldthwait: Share the Warmth (1987) (V) and Meat Bob.

Goldthwait’s first major film role was in Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment (1985). He reprised the role in the next two films in the series.

During the fall of 1993 Goldthwait did stand up material as an opening act for Nirvana on what would be their final North American tour.

He has made several guest appearances on talk shows as well as comedy programs including The Ben Stiller Show. On May 9, 1994, he made a controversial appearance on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” (1992) where on impulse he set a couch on fire. This incident was then the basis of the plot for his subsequent appearance on “The Larry Sanders Show” (1992).

One of the most recognizable features of Goldthwait’s performances is his voice. Goldthwait has voiced characters on the television series “Capitol Critters” (1992); “The Moxy & Flea Show” (1995); “Unhappily Ever After” (1995); “Hercules” (1998) and “Buzz Lightyear of Star Command” (2000). He has also appeared as himself hosting the comedy quiz show “Bobcat’s Big Ass Show” (1998).

Goldthwait has released two comedy albums: “Meat Bob” (1988) on Chrysalis Records and “I Don’t Mean to Insult You, but You Look Like Bobcat Goldthwait” (23 September, 2003) on Comedy Central Records.

He made his feature film directorial debut with Shakes the Clown (1991), which he wrote and starred in as well.

His film Windy City Heat (2003) (TV) won a Comedia Award for Best Comedy Film at Montreal’s Just for Laughs Film Festival in 2004.

He married Ann Luly in 1986 at the age of 24. The couple have two children (now grown), Tasha and Taylor, and divorced in May 1998. At one time, Goldthwait was engaged to his “Unhappily Ever After” co-star Nikki Cox, but the couple has since split.

Bobcat began directing ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live” (2003) in the fall 2004 season. Since joining the show’s crew, the ratings went up to 2 million viewers a night, with the numbers rising nearly 50% with the teenage demographic. In May of 2006, he left to pursue his film career as a filmmaker/director but has since returned to the show.

Goldthwait’s most recent feature, Sleeping Dogs Lie (formally Sleeping Dogs Lie (2006)), starring Melinda Page Hamilton, was in the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and it was part of the “Independent Dramatic Features” competition. Sleeping Dogs Lie is about a youthful, impulsive sexual encounter which opens the door to a dark comedy about the complexities of honesty. It was also nominated for the Grand Jury Prize in the “Dramatic Features” category. Sleeping Dogs Lie was picked up in a mid-six figure deal for distribution in north America by Roadside Attractions & Samuel Goldwyn Films at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. A French film company called Gaumont bought it for the international rights to the film in France. Tartan Films, a UK-based production company, also bought it for international rights in United Kingdom. The film was released in the US on October 20, 2006. —IMDb.com

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