Mikel Guillen

Mikel Guillen is a Toronto based avant-garde artist and Filmmaker, Photographer, Writer, Designer, Film Translator and Anarchist Poet. He has worked in over 30 films from PA to DP since the early 90's. He grew up between Mexico, Canada, France, Italy and Switzerland. Mikel has a background in Design, Art and Photography (Istituto di Arte e Disegno, Florence, Italy). He studied Film Theory (Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada) and Digital Cinematography (G. Brown, Technical College, Toronto, Canada). As well as Philosophy and Eastern Religions (School of Philosophy, Toronto, Canada). He has been involved in several art projects related to Film and photography such as: Interactive Stasi, music and images. (2010). 23.5 Steps (2011). Mikel's aesthetics and approach to filmmaking is based and inspired by subjects like: Sadness, Melancholia, Anonymity, Poetry, Philosophy, Isolation, Nostalgia, Displacement, Identity, Spirituality, Minimalism and Mysticism. He was part of the Remodernist Film Manifesto films that was inspired by the manifesto written by Jesse Richards. My film Intermission was selected as part of the list of his best films in 2018. By American Novelist, poet, critic, curator, performance artist and filmmaker (Permanent Green), Dennis Cooper.Its an honour for me to be selected among many artists and intellectuals. It is also a privilege to be side by side with my friend and collaborator Scott Barley and his Sleep has her House feature and also big names like Jean Luc Godard and Abbas Kiarostami among others. As well as one of my heroes and inspirations of my work Jean Marie Straüb. "Strange and Mysterious...such a beautiful ending" Mike Hoolboom on Atonal (2019). "Mikel Guillen has been an instrumental contributor to the development of the Remodernist approach to filmmaking, both through the creation of his own works such as "Ascending" and "The Natural State" and the French translation of the Remodernist Manifesto. Jesse Richards. Painter, Filmmaker and Photographer and founder and publisher of the Remodernist Film Manifesto. Mütter was named best avant-garde short film in 2016 by Italian magazine Visione Sospessa. "Beautiful and Haunting". Phil Solomon on The Sadness of the Trees (2015). "Very strong frames, beautifully put, the stately rhythm, the necessity of watching, the beautiful black and white. yes. it feels like cinema, sequences, powerful shots" Mike Hoolboom, Canadian avant garde artist and filmmaker on Intermission. ."Extremely interesting film project" Carlos Reygadas on feature film Mahdi. "The austerity is extremely elegant and the cinematography astonishing, many of the images were reduced to a stern, minimal architecture". Bruce Elder, Canadian avant-garde Filmmaker on Ascending. "What a delicious side-effect of such a devastating time, a soul-raising, heart-rising vignette, a woman and a man, a future, a mystery, a magnificent unfolding about to descend upon the viewer. Ascension". Judith Fitzgerald on Ascending, avant-garde Canadian Poet and Journalist. "This enfant terrible created a poetry of a woman lost in a night dream where real and surreal meet with a promisory new dawn and a young life looking forward to it". Svetlana Plotnikova Ukranian artist and free thinker on Mütter.