JAMES
DEREK DWYER was
born March 4, 1970 and grew up on Cape Cod, MA. He received
a BFA degree in Creative Writing and Photography at Emerson
College in Boston.
It
was while studying at Emerson that he programmed a short film/video screening
and met director Todd
Verow. They collaborated on the controversial feature film Frisk (Sundance, Berlin,
and Toronto 96), based on the novel of the same name by Dennis Cooper. It starred Craig Chester and Parker Posey and featured music by Coil and members of
Sonic Youth.
Frisk was a baptism
of critical and political fire that both Dwyer and Verow arose from much stronger, (and
far more focused.) Together
they formed one of the first digital video motion picture companies, Bangor
Films and were hailed as pioneers by the international entertainment
media. They have been profiled on CBS'
48 Hours and in the pages of Time
Magazine and Filmmaker Magazine.
Notable ultra low-budget, award-winning motion pictures include:Little
Shots of Happiness (Berlin, SXSW, Mill Valley 97), Shucking
the Curve (NYUFF 98) and The
Trouble with Perpetual Deja-Vu ('99) shot in Dwyer's hometown of South
Yarmouth. Deja
Vu won the Choice Award at the New York Underground Film Festival
and the Silver Jury Prize at the Chicago Underground Film Festival. A
Sudden Lost of Gravity , set in the eighties in Verow's hometown of
Bangor world-premiered at the 50th Berlin
International Film Festival. Five of the films that Jim has produced
or co-wrote have premiered at the Berlin fest.
Once & Future Queen , which premiered in Europe at the 53rd
Locarno International Film Festival featured Jim's original music for the first
time. It went on to win awards in far flung divergent locations like South
Korea, Chicago and Texas(!)
Bangor Films features are available on DVD everywhere.
Jim's
articles and film criticisms have appeared in Filmmaker
magazine, insound.com, reel.com and Ifilm.
His photography has appeared in numerous national and international publications
including the New York Times, Screen and Variety.
He published his first novel, The
Boy With The Sun In His Eyes in early January 2005. The comedy tale
of a deadly 80's giallo
movie star and her innocent boy friday is a pseudo-biography that mixes
high camp and intellectual dribblings into a kind of pink existentialism.
Bangor Films recently shot
The Boy With The Sun In
His Eyes on location in Europe. It will world premiere at NewFest,
the New York LGBT Film Festival 2009 and will screen later this summer
at the Tel Aviv Film Festival. It stars Tim Swain (Between
Something and Nothing) and Mahogany Reynolds. The soundtrack features
music by Ben Onono, Sally Shapiro, Paramo, William Bottin and Colin Owens.
Jim has begun to write his next novel, For
Same or Better and just finished screenplays for films set in Argentina and Brazil.
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