Panel Participant - Jonathan Caouette

Tarnation, an autobiographical documentary by director, actor and native Texan Jonathan Caouette that cost just $218 to make, is the Thursday night invitational feature at this year’s Flatland Film Festival. This film was “one of the surprise hits of the Cannes Film Festival” in 2004. Cannes Palme d'Or-winning director Gus Van Sant and filmmaker John Cameron endorsed Tarnation as executive producers after it was screened at Cannes. The film was also screened at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, and Caouette “received hugs from strangers who had seen it.”
Caouette began filming himself and his family at 11 years of age, and created movie fantasies as an escape from his troubled childhood. Some of his shorts include The Ankle Slasher” (1987), The Techniques and Science of Eva (1988), Pig Nymph (1990), The Hospital (2001) and Fame (2002). As a regional theater actor, Caouette has appeared as a schizophrenic John the Baptist in Salome, a queer Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar and both John the Baptist and Judas in Godspell. He has toured with a European production company that performs a theatrical version of The Rocky Horror Show and has appeared in eight commercials, eleven MTV spots and 17student films.
Caouette is inspired by the work of Danish director Lars Von Trier and says that he "loves the idea of making a narrative where it feels like the audience member is peeping in on something that they don't necessarily know if they should be peeping in on." Jonathan presently lives in Queens with his partner David Sanin Paz and his mother Renee LeBlanc.