Michael Oblowitz is a South African filmmaker who has directed and produced a number of critically acclaimed movies and videos.

Early and avant-garde work

Born in Cape Town

Cape Town

Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...

, South Africa, Oblowitz is a Fine Arts and Philosophy graduate of the University of Capetown and holds an M.A. in Film from Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

.

Oblowitz was involved in New York's No Wave

No Wave

No Wave was a short-lived but influential underground music, film, performance art, video, and contemporary art scene that had its beginnings during the mid-1970s in New York City. The term No Wave is in part satirical word play rejecting the commercial elements of the then-popular New Wave genre...

 subculture. His early fine arts short films have been shown in the Whitney Museum’s No Wave Cinema series, as part of a tribute to the innovative work of filmmakers and artists in Manhattan’s Lower East Village.

His first feature, the avant-garde 1985 film noir King Blank, starring Will Patton

Will Patton

William Rankin "Will" Patton is an American actor.-Life and career:Patton was born in Charleston, South Carolina, the eldest of three children. His father is Bill Patton, a playwright and acting/directing instructor who was a Lutheran minister and served as a chaplain at Duke University...

 and Ron Vawter

Ron Vawter

Ron Vawter was an American actor and a founding member of the experimental theater company, The Wooster Group....

, was presented at numerous international film festivals.

Oblowitz has collaborated on film and video projects with major New York artists including Joseph Kosuth

Joseph Kosuth

Joseph Kosuth , is an American conceptual artist. Kosuth lives in New York and Rome.-Early life and career:Kosuth was born in Toledo, Ohio. He attended the Toledo Museum School of Design from 1955 to 1962 and studied privately under the Belgian painter Line Bloom Draper. In 1963, Kosuth enrolled at...

, Vito Acconci, Lawrence Weiner

Lawrence Weiner

Lawrence Weiner was a central figure in the formation of conceptual art in the 1960s His work often takes the form of typographic texts.- Life and career :...

, Joan Jonas

Joan Jonas

Born in 1936 in New York City, Joan Jonas is a pioneer of video and performance art and one of the most important female artists to emerge in the late 1960s and early 1970s.She began her career in New York City as a sculptor...

 and Spaulding Gray. His work has been screened at the Museum of Modern Art

Museum of Modern Art

The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...

, the Whitney Museum, and the Walker Art Center

Walker Art Center

The Walker Art Center is a contemporary art center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is considered one of the nation's "big five" museums for modern art along with the Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum and the Hirshhorn...

, as well Paris’ Cinemateque and Beubourg Museum.

Oblowitz’s other notable work consists of being a director of photography for Germany’s avant-garde filmmaker, Rosa Von Praunheim

Rosa von Praunheim

Rosa von Praunheim , in Riga, Latvia. His given name is Holger Mischwitzky. He is a German film director, author, painter and gay rights activist. Openly gay, he is one of the initiators of the gay rights movement in Germany....

; four short films that garnered various film festival awards; documentaries on South Africa’s prison island; blues guitarist Buddy Guy; and a retrospective look at Booker T and the MGs.

Mainstream, TV and music videos

Oblowitz's mainstream break came in 1997 with This World Then The Fireworks, based on Jim Thompson

Jim Thompson (writer)

James Myers Thompson was an American author and screenwriter, known for his pulp crime fiction....

’s novel and starring Billy Zane

Billy Zane

William George "Billy" Zane, Jr. is an American actor, producer and director. He is probably best known for his roles as Caledon Hockley in Titanic, The Phantom from The Phantom, John Wheeler in Twin Peaks and Mr...

 and Gina Gershon

Gina Gershon

Gina L. Gershon is an American film, television and stage actress, singer and author, known for her roles in the films Cocktail , Showgirls , Bound , Best of the Best 3: No Turning Back , Face/Off , The Insider , Demonlover , Category 7: The End of the World , P.S...

. This was an official entry at both the Cannes

Cannes Film Festival

The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...

 and Sundance Film Festival

Sundance Film Festival

The Sundance Film Festival is a film festival that takes place annually in Utah, in the United States. It is the largest independent cinema festival in the United States. Held in January in Park City, Salt Lake City, and Ogden, as well as at the Sundance Resort, the festival is a showcase for new...

s.

His other mainstream work has been in action and genre cinema. He directed vampire police procedural The Breed, starring Adrian Paul

Adrian Paul

Adrian Paul Hewett , better known as Adrian Paul, is an actor best known for his role on the television series Highlander: The Series as Duncan MacLeod. In 1997, he founded The Peace Fund charitable organization.-Early life:...

 and Bokeem Woodbine

Bokeem Woodbine

Bokeem Woodbine is an American film and television actor.-Personal life:Woodbine was born in Harlem, New York to an actress mother. He attended the prestigious Dalton School in New York before transferring to the also prestigious LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts in the city...

, and the people-smuggling road-movie thriller On The Borderline

On the Borderline

"On the Borderline" is the second single from Bec Cartwright's debut album, Bec Cartwright. It peaked at #29 on the Australian Singles Chart.-Track listing:#"On the Borderline" - 3:21#"On the Borderline" - 4:43...

. He has made two films starring Steven Seagal

Steven Seagal

Steven Frederic Seagal is an American action film star, producer, writer, martial artist, guitarist and reserve deputy sheriff. A 7th-dan black belt in Aikido, Seagal began his adult life as an Aikido instructor in Japan...

, both in 2003: The Foreigner

The Foreigner (2003 film)

The Foreigner is a 2002 movie starring Steven Seagal. The film was shot entirely in Poland, in Warsaw.- Plot :Jonathan "Jon" Cold is a former "foreigner," or deep cover operative, who now works as a freelance agent who is frequently commissioned to deliver high-risk packages.As Jon prepares for...

 and the direct-to-video Out for a Kill

Out for a Kill

Out for a Kill is a 2003 straight-to-video action film directed by Michael Oblowitz. It stars Steven Seagal- Plot :This Steven Seagal thriller sees Wong Dai , the world's most powerful Chinese drug kingpin, is sitting at a long table in an old building in Paris, France, going through the motions of...

.

For the Sci-Fi Channel Oblowitz directed Hammerhead: Shark Frenzy

Hammerhead: Shark Frenzy

Hammerhead: Shark Frenzy is a 2005 Sci-Fi Channel original movie, written by Kenneth M. Badish and Boaz Davidson, and directed by Michael Oblowitz. The film stars William Forsythe, Hunter Tylo, and Jeffrey Combs. The film premiered on Sci Fi Channel June 18, 2005.-Plot:A mad scientist revitalizes...

(also known as SharkMan), which starred William Forsythe

William Forsythe (actor)

William Forsythe is an American actor, known for playing "tough guy" roles. He is also a writer, and has several short stories that are set to be published.-Early life:...

.

Oblowitz has also produced and directed hundreds of commercials and music videos with a variety of top stars including David Bowie

David Bowie

David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...

, Eric Clapton

Eric Clapton

Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...

, Corey Hart, Diana Ross

Diana Ross

Diana Ernestine Earle Ross is an American singer, record producer, and actress. Ross was lead singer of the Motown group The Supremes during the 1960s. After leaving the group in 1970, Ross began a solo career that included successful ventures into film and Broadway...

, Carly Simon

Carly Simon

Carly Elisabeth Simon is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and children's author. She rose to fame in the 1970s with a string of hit records, and has since been the recipient of two Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, and a Golden Globe Award for her work...

, Carole King

Carole King

Carole King is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. King and her former husband Gerry Goffin wrote more than two dozen chart hits for numerous artists during the 1960s, many of which have become standards. As a singer, King had an album, Tapestry, top the U.S...

, Brooks and Dunn, Alan Jackson

Alan Jackson

Alan Eugene Jackson is an American country music singer, known for blending traditional honky tonk and mainstream country sounds and penning many of his own hits. He has recorded 13 studio albums, 3 Greatest Hits albums, 2 Holiday albums, 1 Gospel album and several compilations, all on the Arista...

, Santana

Santana (band)

Santana is a rock band based around guitarist Carlos Santana and founded in the late 1960s. It first came to public attention after their performing the song "Soul Sacrifice" at the Woodstock Festival in 1969, when their Latin rock provided a contrast to other acts on the bill...

, Natalie Cole

Natalie Cole

Natalie Maria Cole , is an American singer, songwriter and performer. The daughter of jazz legend Nat King Cole, Cole rode to musical success in the mid-1970s as an R&B artist with the hits "This Will Be ", "Inseparable" and "Our Love"...

, Garth Brooks

Garth Brooks

Troyal Garth Brooks , best known as Garth Brooks, is an American country music artist who helped make country music a worldwide phenomenon. His eponymous first album was released in 1989 and peaked at number 2 in the US country album chart while climbing to number 13 on the Billboard 200 album chart...

 and John Lee Hooker

John Lee Hooker

John Lee Hooker was an American blues singer-songwriter and guitarist.Hooker began his life as the son of a sharecropper, William Hooker, and rose to prominence performing his own unique style of what was originally closest to Delta blues. He developed a 'talking blues' style that was his trademark...

.

Oblowitz also directed a Heineken

Heineken

Heineken is a Dutch beer which has been brewed by Heineken International since 1873. It is available in a 4.6% alcohol variety in countries such as Ireland. It is the flagship product of the Heineken company and is made of purified water, malted barley, hops, and yeast. In 1886 H...

 commercial campaign.

Recent work

Oblowitz's latest film, The Traveler

The Traveler (2010 film)

The Traveler is a horror film released in 2010, starring Val Kilmer and Dylan Neal. Val Kilmer plays a stranger , who is interrogated for murder at a small town's police station by Dylan Neal, who plays a police detective Alexander Black....

, starring Val Kilmer

Val Kilmer

Val Edward Kilmer is an American actor. Originally a stage actor, Kilmer became popular in the mid-1980s after a string of appearances in comedy films, starting with Top Secret! , then the cult classic Real Genius , as well as blockbuster action films, including a supporting role in Top Gun and a...

, was released in the United States in October 2010. It won the award for Best Thriller Feature at the 2011 New York International Independent Film & Video Festival.

Oblowitz was recently featured in “Blank City”, a documentary about the New York No Wave film movement that took place during late 1970’s and early 1980’s. The documentary features interviews with Oblowitz, along with Jim Jarmusch, Patti Smith, John Waters, Debbie Harry and other luminaries of that scene. It also includes many clips from his films Minus Zero and King Blank.

Sources

• 'These are my roots'
• http://movies.nytimes.com/person/175936/Michael-Oblowitz