Alexandre Rockwell

A skilled and celebrated film maker, Alexandre Rockwell is perhaps best known for his works In the Soup (1992) and 13 Moons (2002). Rockwell's characters are as intricate as they are flawed. He abstains from the shotgun pop of mainstream film and uses classical techniques and sheer creativity to tell his stories. Rockwell hails from Boston, Massachusetts. It is fair to say that Alexandre has film-making in his blood. His grandfather, the Russian-born animator Alexander Alexeieff, and his grandmother, American artist Claire Parker, met and married in France. They spent their lives making animated films together and famously originated pin-screen animation. Rockwell went to Paris to train in filmmaking with his grandfather during his late teens. He later attended the Cinémathèque Française where he formally studied the craft. Rockwell managed to establish himself by the early 1980s. He already had several short films under his belt and his work was shown at Boston's Institute for Contemporary Art and New York City's Association of Independent Video and Film. This led to him landing his first feature film, Lenz (1982) which was shown at the 1982 Berlin Film Festival and enjoyed success. Rockwell followed up with the release of Hero (1983), which won a Special Jury Prize at the 1984 Sundance Film Festival. In 1986, he married Yale graduate and Flashdance (1983) star Jennifer Beals. He didn't make any films until Sons (1989). Praise rained on Rockwell at The Sundance Film Festival when he released In the Soup (1992). The movie featured Steve Buscemi, Seymour Cassel and Jennifer Beals. Rockwell's next film Somebody to Love (1994) was less successful, though the omnibus movie Four Rooms (1995) was popular, in which Rockwell directed the segment "The Wrong Man". Rockwell's marriage to Beals ended in 1996 but they remained close friends. Unfortunately, Rockwell's next offering, Louis & Frank (1998), reprising two minor characters from In The Soup, flopped with audiences. Rockwell hit his stride again with the release of the successful 13 Moons (2002), a comedy which featured a strong ensemble cast including Steve Buscemi and Karyn Parsons. Rockwell later married Parsons (best known for her work as "Hilary Banks" on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (1990)) on Valentine's Day, 2003. After Pete Smalls Is Dead (2010), he made the critically acclaimed Little Feet (2013), starring his two young children, son Nico and daughter Lana, which was entirely funded by a Kickstarter campaign. With this feature, Rockwell continued the form that made him an iconoclast of the independent New York film movement of the nineties. After a break of 7 years, he returned to filmmaking with Sweet Thing (2020), starring his wife Karyn and their two kids, winning the Crystal Bear award at the 2020 Berlin International Film Festival.