Thanks to Kilian Melloy for a great interview and write-up on THE SKIN I’M IN in Edge Magazine.
A few years ago, filmmaker Broderick Fox was, pretty much literally, a broken man. Now he’s whole, healthy – and the living canvas for an intricate, powerful tattoo. Fox’s own life is the canvas for his resonant new film.
I’m humbled by this review of the film which appeared today in EDGE MIAMI, in advance of Saturday’s Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Festival Screening.
“Fox allows the documentary to open up and breathe, and in doing so, composes a lyrical film built out of layers, with the tattoo occupying only the most superficial of those layers — that is, the tattoo lives on the “skin” of the film, just as it lives on Fox’s skin, but it emerges from depths that are dark and perilous. The light to which the filmmaker, and his film, ascends is warm and enveloping…This documentary may take the camera-as-confessor approach that our online culture seems to foster, but Fox the filmmaker knows how to take the stuff of memoir and fashion art. His transformative journey is remarkable, and perhaps unique, but parts of it will be recognizable to many viewers; moreover, this film may well become part of the healing paths of those who sit with Fox, in a darkened theatre, to share in his journey.” Read full review here.
THE SKIN I’M IN producer Lee Biolos, MATERIAL SUCCESS director Jesse Mann, and THE SKIN I’M IN director Broderick Fox at the 2013 Victoria Film Festival Opening Gala. Photo by Jason Whyte
I shot much of the project myself. It also pulls from a lifelong archive of video, film, and photographic imagery I shot growing up. As such it contains a dizzying array of formats including Super 8 film, VHS, Hi-8, Mini DV, SD Video, and HDV. Two wonderful friends from film school shot key materials; Sarah Levy, shot my first trip up to Victoria to meet Rande and also filmed the sit-down interviews with my multiple “selves.” Andrew Groves shot nearly all the tattoo sessions for me, 29 hours of tattooing all told. It was a real gift to have the camera operators in these intimate situations be close friends whom I trust implicitly. In a few additional instances other friends, a former student, and my partner picked up the camera when needed. People have called the project a very big “little film,” and I hope it inspires others to pick up the tools and technologies at their disposal to tell great stories.
“PART OF THIS FILM IS ME TRYING TO LINK MY HEAD BACK UP TO MY BODY,” SAYS FOX.
TIMES COLONIST
JANUARY 30, 2013
BOX OFFICE
What: The Skin I’m In
Where: Vic Theatre
When: Saturday, 9:30 p.m.
Rating: Four stars (out of five)
Broderick Fox never imagined he might someday be mistaken for Antonio Banderas.
Online searches for his documentary The Skin I’m In, which makes its Canadian première at the Victoria Film Festival, often yield references to The Skin I Live In. In that twisted thriller directed by Pedro Almodovar, Banderas plays a sinister plastic surgeon who holds a beautiful woman captive to test a synthetic alternative to human skin he’s perfecting.
Fox’s unflinching low-tech reflection on years of bodily shame, addiction and other issues that inspired him to transform his body into a living canvas seems worlds apart from Almodovar’s sleek, creepy meditation on beauty. But a Spanish film scholar who once mentored Fox noted the films resonate in similar ways, he said.
Both, for instance, explore the nature of identity. In Fox’s case, it was the spiritual and sexual ramifications of identity that would unite him with Rande Cook, the Victoria-based First Nations artist who created the full-back tattoo that memorializes Fox’s experiences.
“There are a lot of people who might write the film off as narcissistic,” admits Fox, 38, who worked on his project for six years and titled it early on. Read full article here.
By Colin Cayer – Monday Magazine
Published: January 30, 2013 4:00 PM
“There’s this fine line. There are native artists that consider everything to be sacred, yet they’ll sell it for a buck,” says Cook who needed to find a way that still felt right to support himself through his art and culture. He was left with one choice. “I had to create a new art form,” Cook says.
Instead of using sacred items representing the spirits of land, sky and ocean, Cook turned to the ancestral stories learned from his grandparents and interpreted their imagery — no desecration required.
This art form is what attracted film professor Broderick Fox. His film, The Skin I’m In, is an official selection at this year’s Victoria Film Fest. Read full article.
Broderick Fox sought out Victoria, BC artist Rande Cook in The Skin I’m In.
By Adrian Gomez / Asst. Arts Editor, Reel NM on Fri, Sep 28, 2012
Director Broderick Fox works on the final sound mix for his documentary “The Skin I’m In.” The film will screen as part of the Southwest Gay and Lesbian Film Festival.
It took a personal low to make a change. And filmmaker Broderick Fox has captured it all on film. “It’s a story that I feel like I needed to tell,” he says during a recent interview. “It’s taken about seven years, but it’s finally all together.” Read Full Article
The Arizona Daily Star made me an honorary Australian. 
Confusion came from the fact that THE SKIN I’M IN is listed as a U.S./Australian co-production due to fact that exec producer Lee Biolos is Australian as well as the incredible generosity of Australian contributors. I’d be an honorary Australian any day!
The 21st annual Arizona International Film Festival enters the home stretch with more than a dozen features, documentaries and shorts, and a couple of filmmakers from Australia. Read full article
The Film Prof with the Full Back TattooThis week, Occidental College film and video teacher Broderick Fox traveled Down Under to the picturesque Byron Bay Film Festival for the world premiere of his feature documentary The Skin I’m In. After a brush with death several years ago, Fox embarked on a journey of personal transformation. Read full article
Broderick Fox interviewed on ABC Radio’s CONVERSATIONS WITH RICHARD FIDLER 3/8/12
While in Australia for the world premiere of THE SKIN I’M IN at the 2012 Byron Bay International Film Festival, director Broderick Fox was a guest on the national ABC radio program CONVERSATIONS WITH RICHARD FIDLER.
Listen to an abridged version of that hour-long program here: