Michael J. Camoin

Mike Camoin is the founding director of Capital Cinema Cultural Exchange, the international filmmakers lab based in Albany, NY. As a filmmaker, Mike Camoin is best known for his documentary series on Adirondack culture: Inside the Blue Line, How to Make an Adirondack Packbasket which have screened in northeastern U.S. and Canadian television markets, and now From the Mountaintop: The History of Adirondack Fire Towers. On a cinematic mission, Camoin is in post-production with Life or Death featuring David Kaczynski and Bill Babbitt. Life reveals how two families deal with mental illness and the aftermath of murder. Camoin's company Room G03 Films was the first of it's kind in the Rensselaer Polytechnic Incubator (2002-2006) leading to the creation of The Battles of Saratoga, a documentary self-distributed on DVD to home and educational markets across the U.S. Camoin was instrumental in expanding the Capital-Saratoga Film Commission and discussions fostering the New York State film tax rebate program. An independent filmmaker on such short films as Ruler of Life, Crossing the Whitestone and Relax the later made it's Russian premiere in 2011 where Camoin was the sole American invited to an intensive 8-day producer's lab. Grazing Miss Albany is a dramatic fiction feature film, written (and to be directed) by Camoin which attracted the attention of Hollywood veteran producer, Larry Jackson (senior studio exec at Samuel Goldwyn Films, Orion, Miramax). Camoin is the creator of An Artist's Right, centered around French Fauves painter Charles Camoin, who discovers his right to be original after participating in the 1913 Armory Show in New York. Camoin was appointed advisory board member to The New School of Radio and Television and serves as a consultant to the Albany Film Commission and created the PSA "Film Albany." He often serves as a location scout/production coordinator for commercials and feature films such as Paramount's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Place Beyond the Pines, starring Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper and Eva Mendes, Battle Under Orion, HBO Films' Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight, and numerous industrial and human rights video campaigns. Holding a Masters in Social Work from the State University of New York at Albany and a Bachelor of Arts from St. Bonaventure University, Camoin has studied directing with Judith Weston and producing and distribution at intensive workshops throughout Europe over the past decades. A leader in independent film in upstate New York, Camoin is a founding member and former President of Upstate Independents, Inc. (1995-2000), a salon network of the Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers (AIVF) based in Albany, NY. He's appeared on NPR with WAMC's Alan Chartock discussing all things independent motion pictures. Camoin resides with his wife, Linda, daughter, Isabelle and son, Jacob in upstate, New York. He disappears to the Adirondack mountains to hibernate as often as possible.