Colin Hodson
b. Kirikiriroa, New Zealand Aotearoa.

BIOGRAPHY:   Colin Hodson’s passion for working in performance and time-based art projects was fueled by working on and acting in productions in experimental theatre with The Wooster Group, Richard Foreman's Ontological-Hysteric Theatre, Penny Arcade, and Taylor Mead, among others, in late '80s/early '90s New York.

Returning to New Zealand Aotearoa, he turned to pre-structured yet improvised film as the medium to continue this exploration of performance.

Collaborating with a circle of friends as the key players resulted in Uncomfortable Comfortable (dir Campbell Walker, 1999), and subsequent movies directed by Hodson: Shifter (2000), .OFF. (2002), and its later iteration .ON. (2006).

These all had a festival presence: remarkable given their ultra-low budgets and lo-fi aesthetic. These films were heralded as part of the Aro Digital Movement and led to a wave of guerrilla filmmaking in New Zealand Aotearoa.

Since then Hodson has been developing screenplays, including a year at Amsterdam's Binger FilmLab as a writer/director (2005-2006). His next works were the rugby horror short Maul (2013), and experimental short Rider (2013), both more formally composed than his earlier directorial work.

After moving to Melbourne in 2016, he has so far made three shorts, Knock Knock Knock, Wetlands, and Foxland (all 2020). These shorts continue to explore formal composition, with minimal budget and crew (often only Hodson and a DOP).

He currently has several projects planned - both shorts and features, some exploiting no-budget guerrilla style aesthetics and others planned as bigger budget 'studio' productions.

CRITICAL OVERVIEW:  

STATEMENT:

	.ON.

What to call myself? Filmmaker - or more specifically, I tell stories, and I use the medium of film for that.

What am I exploring in the stories? It was never my conscious intention, but I've come to realise they nearly all come back to a similar thing: a character I create trying to connect with other people - friends, family or society. These characters who have grown up profoundly alienated from meaningful familial/social contact.

Aspects of that experience are familiar to me and I'm exploring it, maybe for myself, but I hope it inspires others too: because I realise it's hard to find a way out of your first conditionings, but my characters are always trying to do that, to develop across their lives, in one way or another.

There is humour, pathos, the fantastic, even in the cinéma-vérité styled films I've made. That's the stories.

What about the form? What can we get from an image - a sight or sound that shortcuts the word-stream? Film is perfect at that, and that's why I use its sounds and images to reach across to you.

This will keep me busy.

Colin Hodson, May 2021.

	Shifter

FILMOGRAPHY:

Shifter (2000, 73 mins, drama)

.OFF. (2002, 77 mins, drama)

Fatty (2003, 8 mins, drama)

.ON. (2006, 60 mins, drama)

Bike In Dam Square (2006, 2 mins, art film)

Fountain (2006, 17 mins, art film)

Funhouse (2007, 2 mins, art film)

	Wetlands

Alley (2007, 2 mins, art film)

The Bads - So Alive (2008, music video)

Barry Saunders - Here Comes Tomorrow (2008, music video)

String Through The Earth (2008, dual projection film shot in Iceland/New Zealand, loop, art film)

Rider (aka Thief) (2013, 9 mins, drama)

Maul (2013, 15 mins, drama)

Knock Knock Knock (2020, 13 mins, drama)

	Foxland

Wetlands (2020, 8 mins, drama)

Foxland (2020, 13 mins, drama)

As Writer/Actor:

3 Nights (1999, 15 mins, drama) (as co-lead, co-writer, Dir Campbell Walker)

Uncomfortable Comfortable (1999, 90 mins, drama) (as co-lead, co-writer, Dir Campbell Walker)

Shifter (2000, 73 mins, drama)

.OFF. (2002, 77 mins, drama)

	Citizens watch the stock market in The Market Testament.

As artist:

The Market Testament.
Installation in an abandoned eight-storey office block in Wellington, in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis. The building's nightly lighting system was run by a feed determined by the day's stockmarket movements. (2011)

Awards:

David Carson-Parker Embassy Prize for Best Script for 'Life On The Island' of the Institute of Modern Letters MA Programme, Victoria University, Wellington, Aotearoa, 2009.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY:

"Shifter" by Mark Peranson, Vancouver International Film Festival Programme 2000

"Shifter - Directed by and starring Colin Hodson" - The Almost Daily Report from the 19th Annual Vancouver Film Festival.

"The Stranger" by Federico Monsalve, City Voice, July 20th 2000

"One from Cult Classic Pictures, another from Gordon Productions: Shifter and the Shirt"
by Lawrence McDonald, Illusions, 2000.

".OFF." - by Bill Gosden, New Zealand International Film Festival 2002

"Hope Is Not About What We Expect" by Martin Patrick, Letting Space 2011

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