Awards /
Rockefeller Foundation Award
NYSCA
NYFA
DISTRIBUTORS/
IMDB/
SOCIAL MEDIA/
THE TALKHOUSE/
Filmmaker, writer and activist Tom Kalin is a prominent figure in the New Queer Cinema. In addition to his features Swoon and Savage Grace, his award winning, critically acclaimed work traverses diverse forms and genres. He is known for narrative features, mixed media installations and short experimental films and videos. His first feature, Swoon, was awarded the Caligari Prize in Berlin, the Fipresci Prize in Stockholm, Best Cinematography at Sundance, the Open Palm at the Gotham Awards and received multiple Spirit Award nominations. Savage Grace, starring Julianne Moore and Eddie Redmayne, premiered in Cannes, was the opening night film in Zurich and screened at Sundance, London and Tribeca among many others. It was nominated for a Spirit Award and named one of the top ten films of 2008 by John Waters in Artforum, Sam Adams in the LA Times and by Dennis Dermody in Paper. Fashion designer Geoffrey Beene commissioned Kalin to write and direct Geoffrey Beene 30, a lyrical narrative film commemorating his 30th anniversary. The cast includes Marcia Gay Harden, Donna Mitchell, Claire Danes - in one of her first roles - and Viveca Lindfors - in one of her last performances.
In 2015, he and frequent collaborator Doveman (musician Thomas Bartlett) presented a gallery show in NYC at Participant, Inc. titled My Silent One/In The Sweetness of Time; and at Dublin’s National Concert Hall for Blood and The Moon, an evening of film, music and performance celebrating the work of Yeats. As a producer Kalin's films include Mary Harron’s I Shot Andy Warhol and Rose Troche’s Go Fish. He was a writer of artist Cindy Sherman’s feature film Office Killer. He has twice been included in the Whitney Biennial. A 2011 Guggenheim Fellow, Kalin’s work is in the collection of the Centre George Pompidou, The Whitney Museum and New York’s MoMA among others. Kalin was also a member of ACT UP and a founding member of AIDS activist collective Gran Fury, known for its provocative public art projects, which exhibited in the Venice Biennale and had a major survey of its work in 2012 at New York University.
"Savage grace is a quiet stunner, a reserved but engrossing psychodrama whose cumulative impact is devastating."
SAM ADAMS. LA TIMES
"Just watch and hold your jaw up with both hands. Tom Kalin is a huge talent. And Moore's tour de force performance is unforgettable."
PETER TRAVERS, ROLLING STONE
"Queasily fascinating, coolly compassionate, savage grace is a mesmerizing portrait of love run wildly, tragically amok."
DAVID ANSEN, NEWSWEEK
"Told with a spare style and Tart wit"
SCREEN INTERNATIONAL
“Looking at Swoon, I saw an ecstatic, go-for-broke artistic ferocity - you know that Tom Kalin believed in movie art ”
"One of The Most Subtly Subversive films for a long time."
DON BOYD, THE GUARDIAN
"Wildly Audacious.. Dazzlingly well realized..."
JANET MASLIN, THE NEW YORK TIMES
"SWOON IS A GORGEOUS GROUND BREAKING TRIUMPH. EVERYTHING ABOUT IT IS NEW. ****"
HARPER'S BAZAAR
"Stunningly well photographed...A triumph of style over budget."
J. HOBERMAN, PREMIERE
"TWO THUMBS UP."
SISKEL & EBERT
"A cool, exquisite autopsy of manners."
MANOHLA DARGIS
"like death in venice meets the great gatsby on the psycho lot"
WILLIAM NORWICH, VOGUE
Powered by Squarespace