Next stop Calgary, Canada! I’m onored to be headed up to Alberta as a guest filmmaker for the opening weekend of Fairytales 2013, Calgary’s 15th annual queer film fest. THE SKIN I’M IN will screen 7PM Sunday, May 26th at the old Plaza Theatre, followed by a Q&A with myself and executive producer Lee Biolos. Spread the word, and come join us! Click here for full festival details
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.
A former student of mine shared this great blog post by Simon Moritz, a Paris-based grad student, writer, and queer activist. Entitled, “What I Learned From Gay Sex: Misogyny and Homophobia” it explores the internalized misogyny and homophobia many gay men inflict upon themselves and others in their struggles with performances of “masculinity” and conceptions of manhood. An excerpt:
Typically we say that “fag,” “sissy,” “nancy,” “nelly” and “fairy” are homophobic words, and although they certainly are used to perpetuate homophobia, they are not homophobic in and of themselves; the usage of any of these words as slurs usually targets people with male-sexed bodies who do not act sufficiently masculine. They prize masculinity by demonizing femininity. Read full article here
Rande Cook’s totem pole has been permanently installed outside the Museum Volkenkunde Leiden in the Netherlands. Looks amazing!
The Skin I’m In has been selected to screen as part of the official competition at the 2013 15th Annual Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, which runs April 26-May 5, 2013. The film will screen at the historic Coral Gables Art Cinema Saturday, May 4th at 3 PM. Tickets and full festival information available here.
The historic Coral Gables Art Cinema
A thoughtful Huffington Post article by David Duran critiquing digital discourse in the gay community, particularly around HIV status:
What I find most offensive is the treatment of HIV-positive guys who are online looking for most likely the same thing you are. “I’m clean, UB2.” -The most ignorant statement most commonly found online.
Check out the full text of “I’m Sorry my HIV Offends You” here.
The soundtrack for THE SKIN I’M IN is now available on iTunes, featuring the incredible original score by Ronit Kirchman, and Fox’s musical contribution (track 25) which garnered the album an “explicit” Parental Advisory Rating. Ha!
The music in this big little film is the product of much extraordinary collaboration:
Music Orchestrated and Conducted by
Ronit Kirchman
Orchestra Recorded at Rotosonic Sound, Salt Lake City, UT
by Michael Greene
Music Editor
Scott Johnson
Score Mixer
Mike Roskelley
Music Contractor
Ted Hinckley
Copyist
Nicholas Greer
Musicians
Piano
Jed Moss
Woodwinds
Daron Bradford
Horn
Laurence Lowe
Violin
Aaron Ashton
Kathryn Collier
Maria Dance
Tina Johnson
Rachael Bower Karr
Katherine Kunz
David Langr
Kathryn Langr
Kendra Lowe
Rebecca Moench
Cynthia Richards
Becky Rogers
Kristiana Sandberg
David Siegel
Janice B. Vincent
Viola
Candace Wagner
Emily Brown
Heidi Hicks
Lorraine Larson
Mario E. Ortiz
Elizabeth Wallace
Cello
Nicole Pinnell
Desireé Ashworth
Ellen Bridger
Cassie Olson
Brian Stucki
Contrabass
Ben Henderson
Matt Larson
Alexander C. Willey
Violin for “Man with the Movie Camera” sequence, guitars, synthesizers and all other instruments performed and programmed by Ronit Kirchman
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.