Mike Hoolboom
| Mike Hoolboom | |
|---|---|
Hoolboom, 2011
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| Born |
1 January 1959 Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Alma mater | Sheridan College |
| Occupation | Film director |
| Years active | 1980s–present |
| Notable work | |
| Awards | Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts |
Michael "Mike" Hoolboom (born 1 January 1959) is a Canadian independent, experimental filmmaker. Having begun filmmaking at an early age, Hoolboom released his first major work, a "film that's not quite a film" entitled White Museum, in 1986. Although he continued to produce films, his rate of production improved drastically after he was diagnosed with HIV in 1988 or 1989; this gave a "new urgency" to his works. Since then he has made dozens of films, two of which have won Best Short Film at the Toronto International Film Festival. His films have also featured in more than 200 film festivals worldwide.
Hoolboom was born in Toronto, Canada, to a Dutch father and Dutch-Indonesian mother on 1 January 1959. He took up filmmaking at an early age, using the family's Super 8 camera, and did his high school education in Burlington, Ontario.
In 1980 Hoolboom enrolled at Sheridan College in Oakville, Ontario. During his three years there he became known for his works which, according to Canadian film critic Geoff Pevere, "demonstrated a consuming interest in navigating the outer limits of perception, of language, of self, of mechanical reproduction, of bodily sensation and experience". He found wide accolade in 1986 with the release of a "film that's not quite a film", White Museum, a 32-minute work which spliced audio clips of pop culture media and commentary on the state of film over a clear leader. Many of his films during the late 1980s, such as From Home (1988) and Eat (1989), dealt with various aspects of the body.
Hoolboom, while serving a two-year stint at the Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre, was diagnosed with HIV in 1989, after going to donate blood. In the six years following his diagnosis he made a further 27 films, with his focus changing to the impermanence of existence, sexuality, and HIV/AIDS. This period has been noted as having a "new urgency". He also ran a magazine on fringe films, The Independent Eye.
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