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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 ([d] vision fest '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 Loss 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.
The award winning Once & Future Queen, which starred underground legend Philly, premiered in Europe at the 53rd Locarno International Film Festival. It was the first film to feature Jim's original music.
Bangor Films features are available on DVD everywhere as well as VOD at Vimeo and streaming via Amazon Prime.
In 2001, Jim and Todd Verow received a DAAD Artist in Residency grant (formerly Ford Foundation funded) and lived/filmed in Berlin, Germany for six months. He began his first novel during this period while visiting Italy for the first time.
Jim's articles, interviews 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, Nature, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, Screen International 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 dribbling into a kind of pink existentialism.
Bangor Films shot The Boy with The Sun in His Eyes on location in Europe in 2008 on a micro-budget. It world premiered at NewFest, the New York LGBT Film Festival in 2009 and screened later that summer at the Tel Aviv LGBT Film Festival, MixMexico, the Chicago Underground Film Festival and the Out on 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. It was released on DVD in the USA, France, the UK and Germany.
James co-wrote the fake Italo track from the film's soundtrack, Robots Are Un-American, with DJ Bottin. It was released on vinyl by Italians Do It Better.
Work continues on his second novel, The Boy Who Went Back for More.
Jim's first book of photography from the early Bangor Film years, FILM IS DEAD, is available now.
