Biografi
James Derek Dwyer was born on March 4, 1970, and raised on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. He earned a BFA in Creative Writing and Photography from Emerson College in Boston.
While at Emerson, he organized a short film/video screening and met director Todd Verow. Together, they worked on the controversial feature film Frisk (Sundance, Berlin, and Toronto 1996), adapted from Dennis Cooper's novel. The film starred Craig Chester and Parker Posey, featuring music by Coil and members of Sonic Youth.
Frisk served as a trial by fire, both critically and politically, which strengthened and sharpened Dwyer and Verow's focus. They co-founded Bangor Films, one of the first digital video motion picture companies, recognized internationally as pioneers. Their work has been featured on CBS' 48 Hours and in Time Magazine and Filmmaker Magazine.
Significant ultra-low-budget, award-winning films include Little Shots of Happiness (Berlin, SXSW, Mill Valley 1997), Shucking the Curve (NYUFF 1998), and The Trouble with Perpetual Deja-Vu ([d]vision fest 1999), filmed 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 Loss of Gravity, set in the 1980s in Verow's hometown of Bangor, had its world premiere at the 50th Berlin International Film Festival. Five films that Dwyer produced or co-wrote have debuted at the Berlin festival.
The acclaimed Once & Future Queen, starring underground icon Philly, premiered in Europe at the 53rd Locarno International Film Festival and was the first to feature Dwyer's original music.
Bangor Films' feature films are available on DVD worldwide, as well as on VOD via Vimeo and streaming on Amazon Prime.
In 2001, Dwyer and Todd Verow received a DAAD Artist-in-Residence grant (formerly funded by the Ford Foundation) and spent six months living and filming in Berlin, Germany. During this time, Dwyer began his first novel while visiting Italy for the first time.
His articles, interviews, and film critiques have appeared in Filmmaker Magazine, insound.com, reel.com, and Ifilm.
Dwyer's photography has been published in numerous national and international outlets, including The New York Times, Nature, The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, Screen International, and Variety.
In January 2005, he published his first novel, The Boy with The Sun in His Eyes. This comedic story of a deadly '80s giallo movie star and her innocent sidekick blends high camp with intellectual musings into a form of pink existentialism.
In 2008, Bangor Films shot The Boy with The Sun in His Eyes on location in Europe with a micro-budget. The film premiered at NewFest, the New York LGBT Film Festival, in 2009 and later screened at the Tel Aviv LGBT Film Festival, MixMexico, the Chicago Underground Film Festival, and Out on Film Festival. It stars Tim Swain (Between Something and Nothing) and Mahogany Reynolds, with a soundtrack featuring Ben Onono, Sally Shapiro, Paramo, William Bottin, and Colin Owens. The DVD was released in the USA, France, the UK, and Germany.
Dwyer co-wrote the fake Italo track "Robots Are Un-American" from the film's soundtrack with DJ Bottin. The song was released on vinyl by Italians Do It Better.
He is currently working on his second novel, The Boy Who Went Back for More.
Dwyer's first photography book from the early Bangor Film years, FILM IS DEAD, is now available.
