Philip Hoffman (filmmaker)

Philip Hoffman (born December 10, 1955) is a Canadian filmmaker and a member of the faculty of York University.

Hoffman[1] was born December 10, 1955 in Kitchener, Ontario, but lived in Waterloo, Ontario during his childhood and most of his teen years. He studied at Sheridan College, where he received a diploma in media arts in 1979, and Wilfrid Laurier University, where he received a B.A. in English literature in 1987. While a student at Sheridan College he became associated with a group of filmmakers known as the Escarpment School,[2][3] other members of which included Richard Kerr[4] and Mike Hoolboom.[1]

In 1986 he became an instructor at Sheridan College. In 1994, he started operating a summer film workshop, the Film Farm Retreat,[5][6] at Mount Forest, Ontario, initially with support from Sheridan College. In 1999 he joined the York University Film and Video Department as a faculty member. He also has been a visiting professor at the University of Helsinki and University of South Florida.[7]

Hoffman has been described as "filmmaker of memory and association" whose "highly personal" work blends fiction and documentary and "contests the claim to the truth" that characterizes conventional documentary film.[8] As Martha Rosler maintains Hoffman's work "provides a bridge to the classical themes of death, diaspora, memory, and finally, transcendence.[9] Of Hoffman's 1988 film "passing through/torn formations, Stan Brakhage said the film "accomplishes a multi-faceted experience for the viewer—it is a poetic document of Family, for instance—but Philip Hoffman's editing throughout is true to thought process, tracks visual theme as the mind tracks shape, makes melody of noise and words as the mind recalls sound."[10]

Hoffman has been honoured with more than 25 retrospectives and spotlights of his work. His 2001 film, `What these ashes wanted’, received the Golden Gate Award at the San Francisco International Film Festival, the Telefilm Canada Award at the Images Festival in Toronto, and the Gus Van Sant Award at the Ann Arbor Film Festival.[11]

In 2001 the publication Landscape with Shipwreck: First Person Cinema and the Films of Philip Hoffman,[12] was released comprising some 25 essays.[13]|[14] The Canadian Film Institute presented a retrospective showing of his works in Ottawa in March and April 2008. A book, entitled Rivers of Time[15] and consisting of an interview with Hoffman, "essays and reflections" on the filmmaker and his work, and images from his films, was issued to coincide with the retrospective.[16]

Since 1994 Hoffman has been the Artistic Director of the Independent Imaging Retreat (aka Film Farm) which is celebrated its 25th Anniversary in 2019.[17] with screenings and an Installation at Toronto's TIFF Bell Lightbox.[18]

In 2016, Hoffman was awarded a Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts[19][20] as denoted in the Record (Waterloo Region),[21] and in 2019 Hoffman's film `vulture', which utilized `green' film developing techniques (partly processed using plants and flowers) was awarded the Kodak Cinematic Award from the Ann Arbor Film Festival, USA.[22][23]