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bio
Sam Wohl is a filmmaker, artist and teacher from Southern California. He has contributed to award winning films such as Beasts of the Southern Wild, Swiss Army Man, and Mediterranea in the art/storyboard department. He earned his MFA from UCSD in 2019 with his feature documentary Manos, which has since screened widely in the US and Latin America. He is the recipient of the UCSD Cres Award 2018, the Russell Grant 2017, and Best Special Effects and Editing from the Art Power Film Festival in 2017 for his short film October 8th. Footage from his 2023 film Empathic Flavors was awarded 40k$ towards the film's subjects: aid group Sharing Love With Others who battle hunger on Skid Row. Wohl teaches at Miracosta College.
statement
My technique combines surrealist psycho-automatic drawings, bio-mechanical imagery, illustrative images of the everyday. They eschew narratives commonly associated with comics and instead offer interpretive visual experiences drawing from pools of thought around virtual/”real” space, the housing crisis, direct action, the unconscious, cyberpunk, and quotidian acts of resistance to the Neo-Liberal reality model. Typically, my drawings are created without a plan and embrace accidents on the way to discovering the composition. Drawing offers a space to quickly permutate images surrounding situations that often crossover into film work.
My experimental documentaries present dynamic moving images through an idiosyncratic lens. Part verité and part sensorial, my films adopt a fly-on-the-wall approach, capturing candid moments of the subjects and their surrounding environments. I experiment with non-linear storytelling, fragmented narratives, detournement, diegetic soundscapes, and layered audio that convey emotions and enhance the overall experience. Subjects have included distinct manual labor of working class women of Uruguay, survivalists, and mutual aid workers on Skid Row. During the editing process, my identity comes out, particularly in terms of art and music influences. Punk, sci-fi, surrealism, reggae, gangster films, Mexican Muralism, nu-metal, comics, hip-hop, and graffiti influences shape the work on an unconscious level. Though these influences are often “loud”, my films are also meditative and reflective. I follow the methodology of Third Cinema filmmaking that operates in alliance with the film's subjects, and seeks to support them with volunteer labor, technical support, in-kind support, and financial support.
My talents have been channeled towards storyboards, concept art, comics, editing, cinematography, VFX, or other collaborative work. I am still for hire on freelance, however I prefer to pursue my own creative interests.
