Oliver Kneale.

Oliver fucking Kneale.

Oliver Kneale was seven-years-old when he had a dream of tumbleweeds blowing in the dry, summer wind. It was a defining moment in the young auteur's life and it is that same feeling of quiet desperation that Mr. Kneale struggles to capture on film.

When his grandfather was videotaping his older sister's high school graduation in 1989, young Oliver was given a chance to peer through the camera's eye for the first time as the old man yielded to another piss break. "Hold this for me, son -- I gotta go bleed the freak!" he said as he handed the Sony hi-fi to his grandson: another defining moment. Later, the old man's brief tutorial on the function of the zoom button would close the deal: Oliver would be a maker of films.

Filmography:

  • Backpeddlin'
    120 Minutes, 1995.
    The story of a young boy who rides his bicycle backwards to win the Tour de France.

  • Garbage Pail Filled with Shit
    27 Minutes, 1995 (Short Film).
    Consists of real time footage of a homeless man defecating into a garbage can.

  • Je m'embrasse
    135 Minutes, 1996.
    Oliver's story of a tumbleweed and its adventures in the city (Oliver insists that it is not autobiographical). Shot in black and white, "the way films were meant to be seen"(as Oliver told Movieline magazine), the film has a Hard Day's Night meets The Ghost and Mrs. Muir feel.

    In 1997, Oliver directed two music videos by his friends, the rock group Shimmer Kids. The first was for a song called "Justify My Reasoning" and the video bears a striking resemblance to a certain Madonna video directed by Oliver's favorite music video director, David Fincher.

    The second Oliver Kneale/Shimmer Kids collaboration was for the song "Hot Butter on a Cold Biscuit" and the visuals tell the metaphorical story of an overeducated liberal white male American who is chained to his computer but breaks free from his shackles with the aid of a bullet to the head. The video garnered Oliver's first (and certainly not last!!) VMA nomination for best choreography in a rock music video.

  • Fleeing from the Scene of the Crime
    140 Minutes, 2000.
    This shocking and surreal psychological noir thriller is the study of a young woman running from the catcalls and brutal interrogation from all those surrounding her. She runs from phonebooth to phonebooth and after she reaches the last one, her final audible scream of "It wasn't my fault! It was the work of an unnamed friend!" is heard only distantly as the film fades to black. The meaning of this work is still debated to this day. Oliver once called it, "A thriller, a chiller and though like Godzilla!"

    The End.

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