Iain Bonner
b. 1979, Barrow-in-Furness, England.

BIOGRAPHY:   Iain was born close to the Lake District in the north of England, surrounded by farms, green hills and those lakes. His family emigrated to Adelaide when he was 11. From there it's been a long and windy road to filmmaking.

After high school Iain ended up in a large factory doing an apprenticeship. Life did not ever seem to hold much in the way of creative possibilities. Slowly over many years, in Melbourne, Iain chipped away at writing and making things, short film and experimental projects, often also venturing overseas, particularly Asia and Europe, to live and experience new ways of life.

He came back to Melbourne from Taipei in 2011 and began his Masters in film at the Victorian College of the Arts in 2012. He now works freelance, and is mustering up the courage to make a long-form project.

CRITICAL OVERVIEW:   My work so far has been eclectic. Spanning short film, experimental, and essay film/travel doco. I was initially inspired by magic-realism literature, wanting to play with some of these ideas on the screen. They were always more about inner worlds and feelings than the reality I saw around me, but that always seemed more real to me.

	Taxi Ride

For the essay film/travel doco films I made, these were always projects to try and move the feeling of being stuck that I often felt. They were ways of forcing myself to record some experiences and then find a way to make sense of them.

As a kid I was greatly influenced by English comedy, and have remained very interested in comedy and all its different forms.

For the films I made at VCA I wanted to integrate some of my ideas about absurdity, and to push the line between humour and failure. For that period I was interested in creating things that were not traditionally beautiful, and did not give you all the signposts a conventional film normally would.

My hope was that if you stuck with the films, through the strange and otherworldly experience, an emotional truth would slowly reveal itself.

FILMOGRAPHY:

	I am dancin where you can see me

Untitled (2005, 4 mins)

I am dancin where you can see me (2006, 4 mins)

I Remember the Sun (2007, 8 mins)

The Distance (2008, 6 mins)

Hum (2008, 4 mins)

Arigato Gozai-mas (2009, 6 mins)

	Hot Chicken

Taxi Ride (2010, 10 mins)

Untitled (2012, 3 mins)

The Purpose of the Suburbs (2012, 5 mins)

Hot Chicken (2013, 14 mins)

The Comedian (2014, 16 mins)

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Small interview about The Comedian

Hot Chicken is mentioned in this article

Iain Bonner's Vimeo page

Contact Iain Bonner

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