selected screenings | various films | video | installations
The International Documentary Film Festival of Amsterdam X 2 (Official Competition Film)—— Gallery 291, London, U.K. || Museum of Modern Art, NYC —Festival International des Films sur l’Art —The World Transhumanist Association & the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology | University of Toronto —The Nouveau Cinema/Media Festival, Montreal (x 3) —Pacific Film Archives/Berkeley Art Museum —National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.—Tribeca Center for the Arts NYC—The Leipzig International Documentary Festival —VRML'99 @ Siemens-Nixdorf, Computer Gallery, Paderborn, Germany ——HOT DOCS, Toronto —Troia International Film Festival, Portugal —European Media Arts Festival, Osnabruck, Germany (X 3) —Victoria Independent Film Festival —The Montreal World Film Festival —Film Society of Lincoln Center, NYC —Canadian Film Institute, Ottawa —The International Experimental Film Congress, Toronto — Chicago Filmmakers — The London Film Co-op, Great Britain — The San Francisco Cinematheque — Los Angeles, Film Forum—The Grierson Seminar, Toronto —Millennium, New York City —Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions —Pleasure Dome, Toronto —The Best of the NorthWest Film Festival, Portland (X 4)— IMAGES Festival, Toronto —The Melbourne International Film Festival —The Rotterdam International Film and Architecture Film Festival, The Netherlands Architecture Institute —The Kerala International Film Festival, India —The International Film Festival on Art, Montreal —The Canadian Embassy, Washington, D.C. —International Scientific Film Festival, Hungary (opening film of festival) —New York Video Festival —Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin —CCCB: Center of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona —MIT/Boston—Chicago International Film Festival —Viper International Media Festival, Basel, Switzerland —New Zealand Architecture Film Festival —EXGROUND Media Festival, Wiesbaden, Germany —Filmer La Musique, Mk2 Quai de Seine, Paris —Belgrade Summer Festival (short films) —African Architecture Film Festival, Screenings in Durban, Johannesburg & Cape Town —International New Media Festival Seoul (X 2) —Festival Internacional de Arte Experimental, Bilbao, Spain—Vancouver International Film Festival (X 7)Most recent (various films): Seattle International Film Festival —Jury Award Northwest Film Festival Portland (‘15) —Leiden International Short Film Experience ('15) —Antimatter Media Arts, Victoria, (‘15) —25 eme Festival International du Film D'Animation — Les Nuits Magiques Bègles/Bordeux, France — Honoka'a People's Theatre, Hawaii, January, 2016 — Selected, The Best of the 42nd Northwest Filmmakers' Festival Tour, 2016 — Sudbury @ Public Library, 2018 — The University of Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil, 2018 — The New School University Center, NYC, 2018 — Musée National des beaux-arts du Québec, Quebec City, 2019 — Vancouver Cinematheque, 2022
“What makes Hockenhull’s film so extraordinary rich is that it combines three different ideas, any one of which would be sufficient for a lesser film, into a richly intersecting weave.”
Fred Camper, Chicago Reader
L’auteur ne pose pas a l’oracle, il se fait intemporel surréaliste. Hockenhull sait capter a la fois l’émotion et le ridicule de certain état d’âme.
Clément Trudel, Le Devoir
“Politically charged moments or events are used as a springboard to examine a whole range of other concerns — the language of cinema, communication theory, human interaction, philosophical considerations. His preoccupation with creating a voice for the underdog and with the subversion of authority gives each of these works a strength akin to much of Latin American cinema’s early gems. This, coupled with a look that challenges and engages the viewer’s eye with lush and sensuous images, adds up to some very worthwhile work.”
Alex MacKenzie, Noise Magazine
“Endlessly fascinating. It is, in fact, a brave new work. A brave next wave. Visually entrancing and sparklingly innovative, Aldous Huxley: The Gravity of Light, is a post-Godardian meeting of mind, fact and light. Huxley, the visionary, would’ve tripped out.”
– Peter Wintonick, Co-Producer/Co-Director, “Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media”
” Oliver Hockenhull’s experimental documentary — calls to mind the multifaceted questioning of media information and language in general in some of Godard’s more radical works of the late 60s–particularly Le Gai Savoir–that featured different forms of collage. All sorts of elements are woven into the mixture, including documentary footage, interviews, dialogues, punk rock, images from TV, performance art involving slides and silhouettes, and many different kinds of image processing.”
Jonathan Rosenbaum | Chicago Reader
“…a thoughtful and well-researched documentary …I don’t use the word scholar lightly when I describe Hockenhull. On top of that, its visually stunning, with all kinds of unusual layers of art, video, and effects”
The Georgia Straight
“…similar to Errol Morris’ A Brief History of Time” Oliver Hockenhull juxtaposes the life of Aldous Huxley with computer animation, archival footage and visual poetry to create essay on a prophetic visionary and the toll of unrelenting progress.”
Dale E. Basye, Willamette Week, Portland.
“…a visually daring look at evolutionary theory that comes off like a university course in paleobiology as taught by Marshall McLuhan. “
Monday Magazine
“If the subjects of this film were not so serious and political, I am sure it would have been accepted by now in the experimental “Hall of Fame”. Its true measure of success is that it is feared by the experimentalists in film culture and misunderstood as “ART” by documentarists of media reality.”
A.R. — Visual Alchemy
“Realizing the potential of a complete cinematic experience…a wave of glorious images, caressing poetry and engaging expositions.”
Tania Bolskaya, DISCORDER
“Entre la Langue et L’Océan is Hockenhull’s take on Canada’s perpetual identity crisis, through a focus on the failed revolution of 1837-38. Surrealist, radical, aesthetically rich, technically ambitious, this is a film that resists categorization.”
Vancouver International Film Festival
“…judicious editing and sublime visuals…the filmmaker succeeds with a colourful advocacy that fuses science, art & spirituality into a seamless whole.”
Geoff Olson, Vancouver Courier
“The new work is reminiscent of a young Chris Marker. But it is a new form, what I call a digital documentary, done mostly on the computer, shot with small dv cameras, processed photos, avid nonlinear editing, aftereffects software, vrml and a music track which would blow your audiences socks off…This is trance-cendant media —”
Peter Wintonick
DAMP: “The theorizing here is smart, the visuals endlessly inventive. When most of us weren’t looking, Vancouver displaced Toronto as the Canadian centre for vanguard thinking about media, culture and place.”
Will Straw, Professor, Media, McGill, Montreal
“It is as if you are looking at Meaning itself, traveling down to the realms below ordinary experience where the energy patterns that generate the world are circulating.”
Film International, David Finkelstein, 2017
“EVO will mess with your mind; bending it, expanding it and teaching it that it is merely part of a continuum. The experience is simultaneously humbling and exhilarating, A fabulous achievement!”
Kevin McMahon, filmmaker/writer
“Hockenhull has a radical take on the well worn revelation of political hypocrisy, using a whole arsenal of techniques to create the overall effect of acute despair.”
Mary Beth Crain, Los Angeles Weekly
“Provocative. Winningly goofy work in which paradox is paramount and truth is always around the bend.”
Ken Eisner (Review of Like Children Only Taller | Feature Drama)
“Shockingly beautiful. “
Maria Sasano, See Magazine
“Important, and seriously entertaining, unforgettable, challenging, enlightening and …funny.”
Katherine Monk, The Vancouver Sun
Where you can find my films: Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre | Labocine | iTunes | Amazon | Moving Pictures | Hoopla | Plex | CGood TV | Xumo | Moodbox | Social Club TV | Xumo | Video Out | Youtube
“Hockenhull’s art and practice is based on an exploration of ‘new media’ as a counterpart to an exploration of ‘new thought’. Hence, his interests in authorship, spectatorship, interactive delivery, web, and the intersections of past and future (the mutable present) display the genuine features of an artist – educator that values risk and creativity above the comforts of ‘safe genres’
A.R. — Visual Alchemy
“If Oliver Hockenhull’s work falls into the category of the experimental it does so in a highly imaginative and unorthodox way, by restoring to poetic ambiguity its good name.”
Whtiney Museum of American Art, Yvonne Rainer, Filmmaker & Instructor
“…there is a growing consensus that the so-called “War on Drugs” has been a catastrophic failure. This is not a difficult case to make and constitutes more an illustrative side-note to this really quite beautiful film.”
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ROBIN GILBERT-JONES
“The most amazing thing is how he touches on so many aspects of evolution in the same movie, without really losing his train of thought. From the religious debate surrounding evolution vs. Genesis, to genetic engineering and the human animal in the digital age, Hockenhull pulls it all together. “
Katherine Monk, The Vancouver Sun
'History is a contest between idolatrous images and the mind's capacity for thought." Ernst Jünger
Previous works: Nominated for the Joris Ivens Award at the International Documentary Film Festival of Amsterdam (IDFA) 1996, The Gold Hugo at the Chicago International Film Festival, 2005. Nominated for NFB Documentary Award, VIFF, 1999. Audience Favorite at the Vancouver International Film Festival, 2013. Judge Award at the Northwest Film And Video Festival in 2015.