Lloyd Kaufman Overview

Lloyd Kaufman, along with producer Michael Herz (who he met while studying at Yale,) is the co-founder of Troma Studios, the world's longest running independent film studio, and he directed many of their features, including The Toxic Avenger, which would catapult... [more]

Lloyd Kaufman, along with producer Michael Herz (who he met while studying at Yale,) is the co-founder of Troma Studios, the world's longest running independent film studio, and he directed many of their features, including The Toxic Avenger, which would catapult him to the status of cult favourite. The studio was founded in 1974 and first largely produced a string of sexy comedies like Squeeze Play! (1980), Waitress! (1981) and Stuck on You! (1984) before hitting on The Toxic Avenger in 1985. Like many of Kaufman's films, the horror/sci-fi/humour mix also talks about darker issues, in this case, environmental degradation and damage. He followed it up with a few sequels, as well as Sgt. Kabukuman, NYPD, and Tromeo and Juliet, which received critical acclaim. His latest film is 2008's gore fest, Poultrygeist, an anti-fast food flick. Kaufman's also a popular lecturer and writer on film - specifically filmmaking on the cheap. The "Dogpile 95 Doctrine of Digital Filmmaking" is his manifesto in answer to Lars von Trier's Dogme 95. In it, he says "Long before Dogme 95 was born, Troma was making movies with poor lighting, amateur acting and crappy sound. However, we just haven't been able to rise to the level of boredom that the Dogme 95 films have attained. This is one of the reasons that Dogpile 95 has been founded." He compares the two philosophies. In Dogme, "Genre movies are not acceptable". In Dogpile, "Genre movies are acceptable. Unless they are from pretentious boring genres like that movie about gay cowboys eating pudding. By the way, what exactly is a genre movie? See Shakespeare. Is that genre? Is Ron Jeremy's Texas Dildo Masquerade genre? Then by God, we want to be genre!" A fan of the late Stan Brakhage, the Troma catalogue always contains a good portion of avant garde film. Dedicated to the prinicples of indie film making, Kaufman is also chair of the Independent Film and Television Alliance, and runs Troma Dance, a film festival that's free for audiences and filmmakers alike, every year directly opposite Sundance on the festival calender. [show less]