Having forged himself an extraordinary three decades-long career, visionary German director and producer Uwe Boll carved himself quite a reputation in the film industry both through his sui generis approach to storytelling, his fearless exploration of diverse genres, and his even more fearless takedowns of his detractors and his various cutting rants about the movie business, with Hollywood’s fat cats taking the brunt of his rhetoric. No matter how much people have criticised him, Boll successfully adapted popular video games into films, which despite not going down well at the box office, never stopped him from making numerous sequels with major franchises such as SEGA, ATARI and UBISOFT. Ultimately, though, he decided it was time to hang up his filmmaker’s hat in 2016, following a particularly passionate “Fuck you all” rant on Youtube, to pursue another of his great passions: the culinary arts.
After wining and dining at 120 Michelin-starred restaurants over the course of a decade, he opened his own award-winning restaurant, Bauhaus, in Vancouver, which went on to win a gold award for Best European Restaurant at the 2020 Vancouver Magazine Awards.
But Boll soon found himself gravitating back to the film industry when, while sitting by the Christmas tree one festive season, film ideas started popping into his head, prompting him to return to what he does best. Long story short, he recently write and directed his exhilarating imminent comeback movie, First Shift, which is being billed as a gripping crime drama that gives viewers a raw and intense look into the lives of New York City police officers. The film features an incredible cast, including Gino Anthony Pesi and Kristen Renton, and is currently in post-production.
As he prepares to embark on this new chapter in his career, CinemaChords’ Howard Gorman sat down with Boll to gauge his stance on the state of Hollywood and the film industry since his infamous rant, his newfound approach to filmmaking since retiring in 2016, and how his experience running a restaurant has shaped, to some extent, his perspective on filmmaking.
