Michael Galinsky (born 1969) is an American filmmaker, cinematographer, photographer, and musician who has produced and directed a number of documentaries, several of them in collaboration with his now-wife,
Suki Hawley. With their partner David Beilinson, they run a production and distribution company called Rumur.
Early life and education
Galinsky is a native of
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Chapel Hill is a town in Orange, Durham and Chatham counties in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Its population was 61,960 in the 2020 census, making Chapel Hill the 17th-largest municipality in the state. Chapel Hill, Durham, and the state ca ...
,
where he was born in 1969.
In his youth he enjoyed basketball, biking, reading, and eventually found interest in photography.
His twin brother is the noted social psychologist,
Adam Galinsky
Adam Daniel Galinsky (born 1969) is an American social psychologist known for his research on leadership, power, negotiations, decision-making, diversity, and ethics. He is Vikram S. Pandit Professor of Business and Chair of Management Division at ...
.
He attended
New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, the ...
, from which he graduated
Phi Beta Kappa
The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal a ...
in religious studies.
“I was interested in photography,” he later told an interviewer, “but felt odd about going to art school, so I went to a college that had a lot of photography classes and took 1 a year” while pursuing religious studies major. “So I basically minored in photo....I ended up auditing a film production class after college for a few weeks. At the time I was working as a production assistant on films”.
[
]
Career
After graduating from college, he was “working as a PA and basic all-around grunt” and “was also doing some photo work and wanted to make films.”[ When he met Hawley at a party, she was a film-school student, and he “talked her into dropping out so that ]hey
Hey or Hey! may refer to:
Music
* Hey (band), a Polish rock band
Albums
* ''Hey'' (Andreas Bourani album) or the title song (see below), 2014
* ''Hey!'' (Julio Iglesias album) or the title song, 1980
* ''Hey!'' (Jullie album) or the title s ...
could make a film instead. eknew that no one else would give imthe chance to shoot.”
Galinsky has been making films with Suki Hawley since 1994. Their first two films, ''Half-Cocked'' (1994) and ''Radiation'' (1999), were narrative features. They were followed by the documentary ''Horns and Halos'' (2002), which they made in partnership with David Beilinson. Soon after, they formed Rumur, a collaborative production studio.
Galinsky served as producer and director or co-director of ''Radiation'' (1999), ''Horns and Halos'' (2002), ''Code 33'' (2005), ''Miami Manhunt'' (2008), ''Battle for Brooklyn'' (2011), and ''Who Took Johnny'' (2013).
He has worked as a cinematographer, cameraman, or director of photography on all of the above films, as well as on ''Half-Cocked'' (1994), ''Texas Gold'' (2005), ''August in the Empire State'' (2006), ''Lucky Lake'' (2006), and ''Repeat Attenders'' (2014).
He received a writing credit on ''Half-Cocked'' (1994), ''Radiation'' (1999), and ''Knives in My Throat: The Year I Survived While My Mind Tried to Kill Me'' (2005).
He was also credited with sound and sound design on ''Code 33'' and as composer of the musical score for ''Half-Cocked''.
Galinsky's and Hawley's films have been screen at scores of festivals around the world, including South by Southwest
South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in m ...
, Rotterdam
Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"N ...
, Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...
, Sundance, Slamdance, and the New York Underground Film Festival The New York Underground Film Festival was an annual event that occurred each March at Anthology Film Archives in New York City from 1994 through 2008 founded by filmmakers Todd Phillips ('' Road Trip'', '' Old School'') and Andrew Gurland. After P ...
.[
Galinsky has said that he considers it important for a filmmaker “to have a good understanding of how images get made because then you have a certain amount of control over how a project will look.” He also believes that “good filmmaking requires a combo of intuition and knowledge. Without intuition, the film will lack heart and without at least some knowledge it won’t cut together. At the same time, if the knowledge of craft overwhelms the intuition one ends up with something that looks and feels like a commercial.” He has cited the ]Maysles brothers
Albert Maysles (November 26, 1926 – March 5, 2015) and his brother David Maysles (January 10, 1931 – January 3, 1987; ) were an American documentary filmmaking team known for their work in the Direct Cinema style. Their best-known films i ...
and John Cassavetes
John Nicholas Cassavetes ( ; December 9, 1929 – February 3, 1989) was an American actor, film director, and screenwriter. First known as a television and film actor, Cassavetes also helped pioneer American independent cinema, writing and dire ...
as major influences.[ As for his collaboration with Hawley, he has described them as having “very different – complementary strengths. Suki is a very good editor and organizer of thoughts and I have a bunch of crazy ones. She’s the one who really pulls things together.”][
]
Rumur
The Rumur team consists of Galinsky, Hawley, and Beilinson, who formerly worked at PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...
and Miramax
Miramax, LLC, also known as Miramax Films, is an American film and television production and distribution company founded on December 19, 1979, by brothers Harvey and Bob Weinstein, and based in Los Angeles, California.
It was initially a leadi ...
. In addition to producing and distributing Galinsky and Hawley's films, Rumur has created music videos for such performers as Alana Newman and Jacob Miller. Rumur also made the 2005 Iraq War
{{Infobox military conflict
, conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق (Kurdish languages, Kurdish)
, partof = the Iraq conflict (2003–present), I ...
documentary ''Occupation: Dreamland'', directed by Ian Olds and Garrett Scott.
Films
Half-Cocked
''Half-Cocked'' (1994) is a documentary-style fictional film that was written by Galinsky and Hawley, directed by Hawley, and filmed by Galinsky. It featured the music of several rock groups, including Galinsky's own band, Sleepyhead, in which he played bass. Galinsky has explained that he had taken classes in documentary photography and Hawley had “studied classic Hollywood film at Wesleyan
Wesleyan theology, otherwise known as Wesleyan– Arminian theology, or Methodist theology, is a theological tradition in Protestant Christianity based upon the ministry of the 18th-century evangelical reformer brothers John Wesley and Charles W ...
,” and in ''Half-Cocked'' they “were trying to...kind of marry the two...to make a narrative film that had that kind of humor of Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder (; ; born Samuel Wilder; June 22, 1906 – March 27, 2002) was an Austrian-American filmmaker. His career in Hollywood spanned five decades, and he is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Classic Holl ...
but that was also capturing something that wasn't going to be there.”
Although the film was not picked up for film festivals at the time, it was screened in rock clubs around the world[ and has since gained admiring attention in many quarters. It has been described as a “cult indie music film.”][ Reviewer Mike Everleth called it “a right-on piece of genius” and “the definitive early ’90s indie rock film...a fictional story starring real life indie rock musicians, many playing either themselves or characters based on themselves.”][ A writer for the Austin Chronicle described ''Half-Cocked'' as a “tasty nugget of mid-Nineties apathy,” noting that “this isn't some preachy flick of finicky teens making it in the world” but, rather, “a time capsule full of heart and hope, and underneath all the drama, right there in grainy black and white, is the real documentary of coming of age in the transition time between angst and responsibility.”][
]
Radiation
Like ''Half-Cocked'', ''Radiation'' (1999) is a fictional narrative shot in a documentary style. Filmed in Madrid
Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...
and Barcelona
Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...
, it is about the mishaps of a Spanish music promoter named Unai. The film was shown at over 40 festivals in the U.S. and abroad, including Sundance, New York Underground, and South by Southwest.[
]
Horns and Halos
Directed by Galinsky and Hawley, ''Horns and Halos'' (2002) is a documentary about “the intrigue surrounding the publication of the controversial book ''Fortunate Son
"Fortunate Son" is a song by the American rock band Creedence Clearwater Revival released on their fourth studio album, ''Willy and the Poor Boys'' in November 1969. It was previously released as a single, together with "Down on the Corner", in ...
'', a biography of George W. Bush
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
,” which its first publisher, St. Martin's Press, withdrew from sale “after controversy arose over a passage accusing Bush of being a convicted drug user”; the book was then re-published by a small publishing house, Soft Skull Press. The film, which opened the 9th New York Underground Film Festival, was praised in the Underground Film Journal for “remaining amazingly unbiased towards the subject matter.” It is discussed in some detail in the book ''Cinema Wars: Hollywood Film and Politics in the Bush-Cheney Era'' by Douglas M. Kellner.
On September 11, 2011, article, Galinsky recalled that on September 10, 2001, “my partners and I shot the final scene of our film, ''Horns and Halos,''” and “stayed up late that night working with the footage.” The next morning, when the first plane hit the World Trade Center, “the impact caused our cats to jump off the bed and our dog to sit up, which roused us.” After finding out what was happening, they walked to Fort Greene Park to “see it for real from the top of the hill.” Galinsky had “consciously not taken my camera that morning as I left the house” because he felt “that taking pictures would take me out of the moment, or that it would be exploitative in some way.” He then made his way to Downtown Brooklyn
Downtown Brooklyn is the third largest central business district in New York City after Midtown Manhattan and Lower Manhattan), and is located in the northwestern section of the borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is known for its office and ...
to donate blood.
During the next few days, they returned to work on the film. “On Sept. 10 George W. Bush was seen as something of a clown by many people. On Sept. 11 he didn’t fare too well either. However, by Sept. 14 or 15 the drumbeat of patriotism had become deafening.” As a result, Galinsky and Hawley “had a hard time getting anyone interested in a documentary that was even mildly critical of Bush....We finished the film on March 5, 2002 and our daughter was born five hours later.” Galinsky closes by lamenting the “outsized sense of patriotism” that ended up costing America “thousands of young men and women” and “trillions of dollars in resources.”
Code 33
''Code 33'' (2005) is set in the summer of 2003 and follows two Miami cops' pursuit of a serial rapist in Little Havana
Little Havana ( es, Pequeña Habana) is a neighborhood of Miami, Florida, United States. Home to many Cuban exiles, as well as many immigrants from Central and South America, Little Havana is named after Havana, the Capital (political), capita ...
.
August in the Empire State
Galinsky co-directed and photographed ''August in the Empire State'' (2006), a documentary about events surrounding the 2004 Republican National Convention
The 2004 Republican National Convention took place from August 30 to September 2, 2004 at Madison Square Garden in New York City, New York. The convention is one of a series of historic quadrennial meetings at which the Republican candidates fo ...
.
Miami Manhunt
Galinsky co-directed and photographed ''Miami Manhunt'' (2008), a true-crime special for the A&E Network
A&E is an American basic cable network, the flagship television property of A&E Networks. The network was originally founded in 1984 as the Arts & Entertainment Network, initially focusing on fine arts, documentaries, television drama, dramas, and ...
. It followed the investigation of a serial rapist.[
]
Battle for Brooklyn
''Battle for Brooklyn'' (2011) is a documentary directed by Galinsky, Suki Hawley, and Beilinson. It depicts the long-term legal battle waged by owners and residents whose property was at risk of being condemned to make way for the Atlantic Yards project, a plan to build 16 skyscrapers and a basketball arena for the New Jersey Nets
New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created.
New or NEW may refer to:
Music
* New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz
Albums and EPs
* ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013
* ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...
in Brooklyn.[ The filmmakers raised $25,000 on Kickstarter in the fall of 2009 to make the film.]
A writer for the Underground Film Journal called it an “insanely epic documentary” and “a classic American tale of the underdog fighting entrenched moneyed and political interests.” It has also been described as “powerhouse documentary” and “a ’70s Sidney Lumet film made real” that “gives us the perfect everyman hero to root for at its center....If there ever were a film to inspire the seemingly powerless masses to rise up and fight back against big business and the politicians who lie in bed with them, it would be ''Battle for Brooklyn''.” The Chicago Reader called the film “valuable for its cold-eyed look at how real estate interests work the levers of power in state and city government, dangling the vague promise of job creation in exchange for sweetheart deals that drain the public coffers.” Hawley told IndyWeek that “conservatives love the movie and liberals love the movie, because everybody hates kleptocracy....They hate corruption. And that's what this movie tells.” It was shown at the 2012 Revelation Perth International Film Festival[ and the 2011 Chicago Underground Film Festival,][ played at venues in over twenty cities, including the ]Laemmle Music Hall Laemmle is a surname, shared largely by a family of filmmakers. Notable people with the surname include:
* Carl Laemmle (1867–1939), German-American film producer
* Carl Laemmle Jr. (1908–1979), American film producer
* Carla Laemmle (1909–2 ...
in Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
,
and was aired on PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...
. It won many awards, was named one of the fifteen notable films of 2012 by the American Library Association
The American Library Association (ALA) is a nonprofit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with 49,727 members a ...
, and was shortlisted for an Oscar
Oscar, OSCAR, or The Oscar may refer to:
People
* Oscar (given name), an Irish- and English-language name also used in other languages; the article includes the names Oskar, Oskari, Oszkár, Óscar, and other forms.
* Oscar (Irish mythology), ...
.[
]
All the Rage
''All the Rage'' (2016) is a documentary about Dr. John Sarno and his philosophy that back pain is caused by mind-body interactions.
The Commons
''The Commons'' (2019) is a documentary about protests concerning the controversial Silent Sam
The Confederate Monument, University of North Carolina, commonly known as ''Silent Sam'', is a bronze statue of a Confederate soldier by Canadian sculptor John A. Wilson, which once stood on McCorkle Place of the University of North Carolin ...
monument at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States ...
.
After a screening at the 2019 True/False Film Festival
True/False Film Fest is an annual documentary film festival that takes place in Columbia, Missouri. The Fest occurs on the first weekend in March (sometimes beginning in late February), with films being shown from Thursday evening to Sunday nig ...
, Courtney Symone Staton, filmmaker, and UNC student, came on stage during the Q&A to read a statement from the activists leading the protest captured in ''The Commons''. The statement read that several of the activists featured in the film were not aware of the film's existence nor were they aware that it was finished and screening at a major festival. The statement also read that Galinsky and co-director Hawley mentioned the existence of a "student film" multiple times at a previous Q&A. Staton and other activists directed this film titled ''Silence Sam''.
Writings
Malls across America
In 1989, when Galinsky was 20 years old, he and a friend spent six weeks driving across the U.S., taking pictures in malls. “At the time, the mall was the new public space, the new community center where people would interact,” Galinsky later said. “This was pre-Internet, pre-cellphone, there was smoking in malls, it was before the Gulf War
The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Iraq were carried out in two key phases: ...
. It was this weird moment in time where things were getting ready to change.”
Over the years, many of these pictures have been reproduced in various publications and on a number of websites. One critic has commented that Galinsky captured, in these pictures, “in a beautifully off-kilter high-flash way, the cool ugliness of suburban style.” Another has written that “What makes these photos so appealing and oddly touching is the nostalgia bound up in them....They are from a not so distant past....The collection is imbued with a sense of the everyday melancholy but also manage to be a pop-anthropological feast.” A collection of some of these photographs, ''Malls Across America'', was published by Steidl in October 2013.
Other Writings
In May 2013, Galinsky wrote a detailed appraisal of the films at that year's Tribeca Film Festival
The Tribeca Festival is an annual film festival organized by TriBeCa Productions, Tribeca Productions. It takes place each spring in New York City, showcasing a diverse selection of film, episodic, talks, music, games, art, and immersive progra ...
.
Since June 2009, Galinsky has regularly contributed articles and videos to ''The Local'', a ''New York Times'' sub-website about Fort Greene news. He has reported on community meetings, done restaurant reviewing, discussed school reform, and addressed various other local issues. In September 2012 he posted a video of the ribbon-cutting at the Barclays Center this morning for the arena's formal ribbon-cutting and Michael Galinsky, filmmaker and contributor to The Local, captured the scene on camera. He has also contributed an update on the Atlantic Yards project.
Other professional activities
Galinsky took part in a festival called The Art of Social Justice at the American University of Iraq, which addressed the question: “how can artistic expression help to foster social justice in Iraqi society?”[
Galinsky is a contributing editor for International Documentary Magazine, for which he writes about filmmaking and film distribution.][
]
Honors and awards
''Battle for Brooklyn'' won the Grand Chameleon Award (Best Film) and Best Documentary Award at the 2011 Brooklyn Film Festival
The Brooklyn Film Festival (BFF), prior to 2011 called the Brooklyn International Film Festival (BiFF) is an independent film festival held every June in Brooklyn, New York. Started by Marco Ursino, Susan Mackell, Abe Schrager, and Mario Pegoraro ...
.
The American Library Association named ''Battle for Brooklyn'' one of fifteen notable films of 2012[
Galinsky won a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship in 2012. He and Hawley planned to use the grant money to make a film entitled ''Conception'', about family.][
''Battle for Brooklyn'' was shortlisted for an Academy Award for Best Documentary.][
''Battle for Brooklyn'' was named runner-up for the ''Underground Film Journal’s'' Movie of the Year for 2011.][
]
Future projects
Reportedly, Galinsky and Hawley are currently working on ''Story of Pain'', a film about the work of Dr. John E. Sarno.[
]
Personal life
Galinsky and Hawley lived for many years on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, then moved to Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. They were married in the late 1990s and in 1999 bought a house in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Clinton Hill. They have two daughters.[ They currently reside in Chapel Hill, NC in the house that he grew up in.
Galinsky's twin brother ]Adam
Adam; el, Ἀδάμ, Adám; la, Adam is the name given in Genesis 1-5 to the first human. Beyond its use as the name of the first man, ''adam'' is also used in the Bible as a pronoun, individually as "a human" and in a collective sense as " ...
is a professor at Columbia Business School
Columbia Business School (CBS) is the business school of Columbia University, a Private university, private research university in New York City. Established in 1916, Columbia Business School is one of six Ivy League business schools and is one ...
.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Galinsky, Michael
1969 births
Living people
People from Chapel Hill, North Carolina
People from Williamsburg, Brooklyn
American filmmakers
New York University alumni
People from the Lower East Side
People from Clinton Hill, Brooklyn