Michael Oblowitz


Michael Oblowitz is a South African filmmaker.

Early life and education

Oblowitz was born in Cape Town where he grew up surfing in the 1970s. He is a Fine Arts and Philosophy graduate of the University of Cape Town. He received an M.F.A. in Film Theory and Production from Columbia University in 1982 and studied color photography and printing at the Central School of Art London in 1976.

Career

He began his career in the early 1970s with the films X-Terminator, The Is/Land, Minus Zero and King Blank. The films are part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
He entered the mainstream in 1997 with the crime drama film This World, Then the Fireworks. In October 2010, his film The Traveller, starring Val Kilmer, was released in the United States. It won an award for Best Thriller Feature at the 2011 New York International Independent Film & Video Festival.
He released his first surfing documentary, Sea Of Darkness in 2010. The documentary won the Best Feature award at the New York Surf Film Festival. His second surfing documentary, Heavy Water, which was released in 2017 starred Nathan Fletcher, won Best surfing film at the Byron Bay International Film Festival and won Best Wavescape film at the 2018 Durban International Film Festival. In 2018, he directed the film Frank & Ava.
He has also produced music videos for David Bowie and Diana Ross.

Notable films

Music videos

Selected filmography