Mike Hoolboom Movies

How to show the long bus ride began in the dark to visit the husband in jail? The repetition which is new every morning. The feeling of seeing him....

Based on a text by Lisa Robertson (from her bracing book Nilling), a meditation on how cities are bound not by geography but laws and rules designed...

In a series of simple frames, the often misunderstood practice of Zen takes shape as basketball bliss. Now in retirement, the greatest defensive...

The heart of the matter is friend and mentor Mike Cartmell in an outtake from Alan Zweig’s Vinyl (2000). Mike insists that listening deeply to...

In 1984, Mike Cartmell began Narratives of Egypt, a four-part series that deals with the father in Prologue: Infinite Obscure, the son in In the form...

In this dramatic short, a refugee crosses the ocean to escape the ravages of war, but loses family along the way. The musings of poets (Brand,...

A letter from my friend Alfred Vander. Though when we met he was Fred Pelon, anarchist super 8 filmmaker, a prolific machine of thoughts and...

Part 6 of 7-part bio-feature Public Lighting (2004).

Scenes from Madonna: Truth or Dare and the music video for Madonna's "Vogue" along with other various videos are spliced together with a letter from...

This moving film tells the story of Hoolboom's close friend and collaborator Mark Karbusicky, who unexpectedly committed suicide in 2007. Interviews...

This miniature presents an extensive reflection on ways of watching, reception and rebellion against indoctrination and control. Making decisions...

How do we tell the story of a life? What cruel reduction of an image will stand (in the obituary, the family photo album, the memory of friends) for...

The amazement of people as recorded in early films is the central motif of the film appropriated from the Lumiere brothers’ collections which...

Queering the haj. A man recollects a moment (was it any longer than that?) in the aptly named city of Mecca. A conversation ensues in the crowd. The...

Part of 1 of 7-part bio-collection feature Public Lighting (2004).

Eva Marie Rodbro’s embedded ethnographic maestro short, originally shot in Brownwood, Texas in 2009, is given a fan remake. Night vision animal...

BRAND begins like a child's yawn, a fairy tale with an incredible beginning. Brand blends two themes into a fugue of questions and answers. The first...

An afternoon idyll. How to listen to the language of the lakeshore plants, as they ripple in the mid-afternoon light? The story they have to tell...

Passing On, a lyrical, typically confessional effort that encapsulates what's preceded it. Hoolboom's dance with death — a motif acknowledged...

Part 3 of 9-part feature Imitations of Life (2003).