Alexandre Rockwell is best known for his independent films made in NYC with a small group of actors he met on the lower east side in the late 80s. His first films helped launch the careers of well known actors like
Steve Buscemi,
Sam Rockwell,
Peter Dinklage,
Stanley Tucci, as well as many other notable indie stars of the time. His filming style is described as purely independent in spirit and poetic in style. He mixes a blend of comedy and drama to create a portrait of outsiders. His influences are wide-ranging, he has been quoted as saying his style is "as much the
Three Stooges as it is
Tarkovsky". Rockwell was born into a family of artists, the grandson of the Russian animator
Alexandre Alexeieff, inventor of the
pinscreen, and Alexandra Grinevsky, a renowned artist and illustrator of rare books. His father, Paul Rockwell, met his mother, Svetlana Ludmillia Alexeieff, when he was an American GI in
Paris and they married and relocated to
Boston,
Massachusetts. Growing up in
Cambridge, Massachusetts, Rockwell struggled in school and often skipped class, spending his days playing pinball and sleeping in arthouse movie theaters. He avoided college and instead moved to Paris where he would sneak into the French Cinematheque to watch up to three films a day when he was not assisting his grandfather in his studio. He then relocated to New York City in his early 20s where he drove a taxi and delivered seltzer water. It was when he hocked his saxophone and bought a 16mm Bolex camera that he began making his own films. In 1986 he met and within two weeks married actress
Jennifer Beals. Beals introduced
Sam Rockwell to Alexandre, who has subsequently cast Rockwell in four of his films. They are not related to each other. Rockwell has made a number of New York indie films, most notably
In the Soup, which won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 1992, a seminal year for independent American film that presented the first feature-length films of
Quentin Tarantino,
Robert Rodriguez, and
Allison Anders. Together the four directors made
Four Rooms, which opened to mixed reviews and audience response. Rockwell followed up with
Somebody to Love, starring
Rosie Perez, Steve Buscemi, and
Harvey Keitel. Rockwell struggled in
Los Angeles while making
Louis and Frank and
Pete Smalls Is Dead. Both films were met with mixed reviews and he did not make a film for a period of six years. He left the west coast for New York City where he began teaching at NYU and met his present wife Karyn Parsons-Rockwell. Most recently Rockwell has turned to smaller and more independent micro-budget films made with his family, students, and friends to much critical and festival success. His film
Sweet Thing (2020) starred his daughter Lana Rockwell and son Nico Rockwell, and won the
Crystal Bear at the 2019
Berlin Film Festival, and has been widely released to both audience and critical acclaim. Since February 8, 2003, Rockwell has been married to actress
Karyn Parsons (of
Fresh Prince of Bel-Air fame), with whom he has two children. Rockwell currently is head of the directing program at
NYU's graduate film school. and resides in Brooklyn, New York. His wife, Karyn, has her own production company,
Sweet Blackberry. == Filmography ==