H. Paul Moon

H. Paul Moon is a filmmaker, composer and video artist. Through his production company Zen Violence Films, he profiles performing and visual artists who span boundaries from classical arts to new media technologies. He also creates experimental films in the tradition of wordless environmental cinema ranging from Man with a Movie Camera toKoyaanisqatsi.

Moon's debut film El Toro—an experimental work that explores connections between the ancient ritual of Spanish bullfights, and the passion of the Christ—won the Best of Show award of the 2010 Rosebud Film & Video Festival at Artisphere, and the Experimental Media Prize of the 2011 WPA Experimental Media Series at The Phillips Collection. Prior to El Toro, Moon filmed the documentary R. Luke DuBois: Running Out of Time, profiling a New York composer and visual artist who builds on notions of cultural and romantic memory, exploring how information can be accelerated for emotional impact. The documentary premiered at the 2011 DC Independent Film Festival, won the 2011 "Best Short Documentary" jury prize at the Chicago International Movies & Music Festival, and won the 2011 "Silver Medal for Excellence in a Music Documentary" at the Park City Film Music Festival.

Moon recently debuted Time Crunch, a landscape/environmental film accompaniment to the same-named work for chamber orchestra by composer Jordan Kuspa, at the Smithsonian American Art Museum with the 21st Century Consort. His newest documentary is Hamac Cazíim, about a punk band using music to maintain their indigenous heritage. Ongoing projects still in production include a ballet film, and a documentary on the American composer Samuel Barber.

Prior to his recent interest in filmmaking, Moon was a playwright and a composer of incidental music for theatre. He lives and works in the Washington, D.C. area.

Video samples are available at http://vimeo.com/channels/zen