Stephen Broomer (born 1984) is a Canadian experimental filmmaker, film scholar and video essayist.[1]
Life and career
editSon of jazz musician Stuart Broomer and influenced by Stan Brakhage when he began to make films,[2][3] the Toronto-based filmmaker received his PhD in 2015 from Ryerson University & York University's joint program in Communications and Culture.[4]
He is the founder of the home video label Black Zero offering restorations of rare and forgotten Canadian experimental films by Arthur Lipsett, Richard Kerr and John Hofsess[5][6][7][8][9][10][11] and a contributing writer for the Portland-based publication Split Tooth Media, mainly on the October Horror series of written essays.[12][13]
He is also the author of an upcoming critical biography on Lipsett (whom he called "a visionary force and holy fool") titled Secret Museums.[14]
Accolades
editHis series of video essays entitled Art & Trash, focusing on underground, avant-garde and cult cinema, have been mentioned in Sight & Sound's annual polls of best video essays multiple times.[15][16][17]
Selected filmography
edit- Manor Road (2010)
- Christ Church St. James (2011)
- Queen's Quay (2012)
- Pepper's Ghost (2013)
- Jenny Haniver (2014)
- Variations of a Theme by Michael Snow (2015)
- The Bow and the Cloud (2016)
- Potamkin (2017) - His first feature work about the late pioneering film critic Harry Alan Potamkin (1900-1933), one of the first to proclaim cinema as an art form, composed of fragments from the many films he reviewed for newspapers and magazines during the 1920s and 1930s (e.g. Battleship Potemkin, The Passion of Joan of Arc and Metropolis)
- Tondal's Vision (2018) - Found footage restaging of the 1911 Italian adaptation of Dante's Inferno about the medieval Irish knight Tondal
- Phantom Ride (2019)
- Ressurrection of the Body (2019)
- Lula Faustine (2020)
- Fat Chance (2021)
- Josephine Massarella: One Woman Walking (2021)
- The Looking Cure: John Hofsess's The Palace of Pleasure (2021)
- Borrowed Dreams: Joseph Cornell and the Archive as Psychic Imprint (2022)
- Changing Seasons: The Canadian Pastoral in Keith Lock's Everything Everywhere Again Alive (2022)
- Closing Distance: The Cosmic View, the Terrestrial Horizon and Jean-Claude Labrecque's Essai a la mille (2022)
- Hanging Portraits: Obsession and Resurrection in Laura (2022)
- Richard Kerr: Field Trips (2022)
- The Stairwell: Memories and Mirages of Film Noir (2022)
- Rain: A Phenomenal Catalogue (2023)
- Simultaneous Tensions: The Duo-Vision of Wicked, Wicked (2023)
- Against Illustration: Poetics and Intuition in the Video Essay (2024)
- The Eyes of Hell: Depth and Death in The Mask (2024)
- Passions in the Labyrinth: The Decline of Classical Allegory in Johnny Minotaur (2024)
- Second Deaths: Metaphors for Tolerance in Mindwarp (2024)
- Paperback: Prisoners of the Printed Page and the Frayed Aesthetics of The Timekeepers of Eternity (2024)
Sources:[15][16][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][17][32][33][34][35]
References
edit- ^ "Light Cone - Stephen BROOMER". lightcone.org. Retrieved 2024-08-02.
- ^ "Mark Miller writing on my father, Stuart Broomer, for the May 18, 1978 issue of Downbeat. Stephen Broomer on Twitter". twitter.com. 1978-05-18. Retrieved 2024-08-02.
- ^ On Potamkin (for La Casa del Cine) - Stephen Broomer on Vimeo
- ^ "Stephen Broomer - The Film-Makers' Cooperative". film-makerscoop.com. Retrieved 2024-08-02.
- ^ "Paths to Freedom: An Interview with Black Zero's Stephen Broomer". Split Tooth Media. 18 July 2023. Retrieved 2024-08-02.
- ^ "New Blu Ray of Three Films by Experimental filmmaker Richard Kerr". Offscreen. Retrieved 2024-08-02.
- ^ Lost and Found - Artfourm
- ^ Nothing and Everything: Black Zero Begins - Cinema Scope
- ^ Black Zero|Experimental Cinema
- ^ "True Canadian Underground," Black Zero at Gimme Some Truth, Winnipeg Film Group (November 2024) - Black Zero on Vimeo
- ^ Inside the Pleasure Palace – The Brooklyn Rail
- ^ Paperback: Prisoners of the Printed Page and the Frayed Aesthetics of ‘The Timekeepers of Eternity’ (2021) - Split Tooth Media
- ^ The Right Place: Martyrs and Monsters in 'Suffer Little Children' - Split Tooth Media
- ^ November Books|Current|The Criterion Collection
- ^ a b "The best video essays of 2022 | Sight and Sound". bfi.org.uk. 13 January 2023. Retrieved 2024-08-02.
- ^ a b "The best video essays of 2021 | Sight and Sound". bfi.org.uk. 18 January 2022. Retrieved 2024-08-02.
- ^ a b The best video essays of 2023|BFI
- ^ "Potamkin by Stephen Broomer | Arts + Literature Laboratory | Madison Contemporary Arts Center". artlitlab.org. 29 July 2022. Retrieved 2024-08-02.
- ^ "Stephen Broomer - IFFR EN". iffr.com. Retrieved 2024-08-02.
- ^ "'Wicked, Wicked,' Polyrhythmic Form, and the Vicious Split-Screen". Film School Rejects. 7 April 2023. Retrieved 2024-08-02.
- ^ "Be It True, or Be It Fals: Stephen Broomer Discusses "Tondal's Vision" on Notebook". MUBI. 12 August 2019. Retrieved 2024-08-02.
- ^ "An Experimental Decade, the Features: 30 Films of a Fortunate Man on Notebook". MUBI. 17 December 2019. Retrieved 2024-08-02.
- ^ "INCITE » Rituals in Transfigured Space: Interview with Stephen Broomer, by Clint Enns". incite-online.net. Retrieved 2024-08-02.
- ^ Passions in the Labyrinth: The Decline of Classical Allegory in Johnny Minotaur - Split Tooth Media
- ^ Figure and I|Lynne Sachs: experimental documentary filmmaker
- ^ PyRTV
- ^ The Carriage Set Upright: Stephen Broomer on Potamkin - Film International
- ^ Second Deaths: Metaphors for Tolerance in Mindwarp - Split Tooth Media
- ^ The Eyes of Hell: Depth and Death in The Mask - Art & Trash on Vimeo
- ^ Canyon Cinema : Now in Stock: Three New Blu-rays from Black Zero
- ^ Canyon Cinema : Canyon Cinema 50 — February & March Events
- ^ Against Illustration: Poetics and Intuition in the Video Essay - Art & Trash on Vimeo
- ^ Black Zero: Into the Underground of Home Viewing - TANGIBLE TERRITORY
- ^ Now Available: New Digital Files from Stephen Broomer
- ^ Paperback: Prisoners of the Printed Page in The Timekeepers of Eternity - Art & Trash on Vimeo