American underground filmmaker, actor and artist
Mike Kuchar (born August 31, 1942, in New York City) is an American underground filmmaker, actor, and artist. Kuchar is notable for his low-budget and camp films such as "Sins of the Fleshapoids" and "The Craven Sluck".
Biography.
Raised in The Bronx, he made his first films as a teenager in the 1950s with his twin brother George Kuchar and participated in New York's underground film scene in the 1960s and 1970s. He divided his time between New York City and his brother's San Francisco apartment until 2007, when he moved to San Francisco permanently; George died in 2011.
During the 1980s and 1990s, Mike Kuchar created comics and illustrations for homoerotic publications including "Meatmen", "Gay Heart Throbs", "First Hand", and "Manscape," and continued to draw commissions afterward.
"It Came From Kuchar", a documentary film about George and Mike Kuchar by Jennifer Kroot, premiered at the South by Southwest film festival on 14 March 2009.
In more recent years, Kuchar has focused on more intimate one person expressionistic films. At the Vienna International Film Festival in 2009, he unveiled two short films, "Swan Song" and "Dumped". "Swan Song" features the pain of a young man tormented by his sensuality who is painted as an animal writhing in pain, and "Dumped" stars veteran stage actress Deirdre McGill in a portrait of a woman engaged in a deadly love triangle. Kuchar teaches in the film program at the San Francisco Art Institute.
Kuchar also worked as a cameraman for Rosa von Praunheim.
The Kuchar brothers collaborated on a book, "Reflections from a Cinematic Cesspool" (1997), a humorous memoir discussing four decades of filmmaking, with an introduction by director John Waters.
Partial filmography.
Produced at the San Francisco Art Institute:
Produced at the Collective For Living Cinema's Dramatic Narrative Class:
References.
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