Michael Oblowitz

The work of South African director Michael Oblowitz has repeatedly crossed genre boundaries, as his work ranges from avant-garde cinema to horror and action movies. After creating a few shorts, Oblowitz's first feature-length film was the 1983 psychological drama "King Blank." In 1997, he made the dark noir tale "This World, Then the Fireworks," which featured Billy Zane and Gina Gershon and screened at numerous film festivals. Oblowitz was constantly varying his projects, though, as when he directed the 2001 vampire action movie "The Breed" and then the dramatic thriller "On the Borderline." He teamed up with action star Steven Seagal for the thriller "The Foreigner" in 2003. Seagal and Oblowitz would also collaborate on the straight-to-video action flick "Out for a Kill" that same year. Oblowitz explored the horror genre in the thriller TV movie "Hammerhead: Shark Frenzy," which starred William Forsythe. He followed this with a very different film, writing and directing the well-received 2008 documentary "Sea of Darkness." This moody film recounts the story of a group of obsessive surfers. In 2010, he directed the horror thriller "The Traveler," in which a mysterious man (Val Kilmer) walks into a police station and confesses to six murders. In addition to his movie projects, Oblowitz has been a prolific director of music videos and commercials, as well as creating art films that have been shown in museums and galleries around the world.