Joel Potrykus

Joel Potrykus is an American film director and screenwriter. His feature film debut Ape won the Best New Director prize at the 2012 Locarno Film Festival, while his follow-up feature Buzzard won the FIPRESCI Prize at the 2014 Ljubljana International Film Festival.

Potrykus was born and raised in Ossineke, Michigan, then moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan to study film at Grand Valley State University. A stint as a stand-up comedian in New York City led to the inspiration for his first feature film, Ape. While spending a year as a temp at a Michigan mortgage company led to the inspiration of his second feature film, Buzzard.

After a series of 8mm and 16mm short films in college, Potrykus founded Sob Noisse Movies, which produced two larger-scale super 8 shorts, the neorealist zombie film Gordon and the minimalist werewolf film Coyote. His first feature film, Ape, made its world premiere at the 2012 Locarno Film Festival, where it won Best New Director and Best First Feature Special Mention at the festival. It went on to make its North American premiere at the Vancouver International Film Festival, and US premiere at AFI Fest in Hollywood. His second feature film Buzzard, again starring Joshua Burge, as an angry temp worker, made its world premiere at the 2014 SXSW Film Festival, singled out by Janet Pierson as the stand-out in its field. It is the third film in his Animal Trilogy which includes Coyote and Ape. His next feature film, The Alchemist Cookbook, about a young hermit out to solve an old mystery, premiered at the 2016 SXSW Film Festival.

He's been the subject of retrospectives at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 2015 and at the 2016 Valdivia Film Festival.

In 2016, Vimooz called Potrykus "The New King of Underground Cinema", while Vague Visages credits him as the originator of new genre, "metal slackerism".

Ape is seen both as a black comedy and rage fantasy, following failing stand-up comic and part-time pyromaniac Trevor (played by Joshua Burge) as he suffers one humiliation after another, both on stage and off. The film is notable for helping reignite the American indie slacker niche of the mid '90s, both in aesthetic and voice. Buzzard continued the movement, focusing on a horror metal slacker's petty fight against "The Man".

The book Walden by Henry David Thoreau was the influence for Potrykus' 2016 feature The Alchemist Cookbook, which builds on his themes of slackers and loneliness.

Potrykus has cited the following directors and films as having an influence on his work; Alan Clarke’s ‘Made in Britain’, Lindsay Anderson’s ‘O Lucky Man!’, Martin Scorsese’s ‘Taxi Driver’, Vincent Gallo’s ‘Buffalo ’66’, Rick Alverson’s ‘The Comedy’, Luis Bunuel’s ‘The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie’, Jim Jarmusch’s ‘Down by Law’, Sam Raimi's 'Evil Dead', F. W. Murnau's 'Faust' and James Nguyen’s ‘Birdemic'; as well as the films of Michael Haneke, Kelly Reichardt, Jean-Luc Godard and Quentin Tarantino.

Feature films

• Ape (2012)
• Buzzard (2014)
• The Alchemist Cookbook (2016)

Short films

• Birthday Boy (1999)
• Peter Knows Kelly's the Cool One (1999)
• The Ludovico Treatment (1999)
• Mice & Milk (2001)
• Gordon (2007)
• Coyote (2010)