Maximillian Remmler

Newark

Established
Media Arts: Video/Film

By: Gail Obenreder

“[My films are] grounded in our familiar world, but with a surreal element on top to allow observation of the ordinary through a new lens.”

Since he was nine years old, filmmaker and videographer Maximillian Remmler has “wielded a camera and a computer,” telling the stories he saw in his mind. As a child, he watched classic Disney and Pixar animated films, which “exposed me to the world of storytelling.” His very first film project was an unofficial sequel to the animated film Cars, shooting in live action using toys and shooting on a “state-of-the-art JVC Mini DV tape recorder.”

Since he had no film-world connections, Remmler taught himself his craft by watching YouTube tutorials, shooting with a Canon Rebel t2i DSLR camera “inherited from my photography-indulging father.” As he began to be more committed to a filmmaking career, Remmler knew that he “wanted to create movies that had an ‘otherworldly’ aspect about them,” and he later found out that there was actually a name for what he was doing: He had stumbled into the genre of Magical Realism.

The eldest of four siblings, Remmler grew up on Long Island with his parents. In 2016, the family moved to Delaware, where he then attended the University of Delaware as an undergraduate. There, he joined the UD film club, a group that allowed him access to equipment and the opportunity to “work on countless film projects that . . . slowly but surely grew my skills and network.” While at the university, he was also a student intern in the Media Services Department, where he studied the methods and craft of working professionals.

Remmler was born at the hospital connected with New York’s Stony Brook University, which is “ironic because that’s where I would wind up going to summer camp and then graduate school many years later,” teaching there and receiving his MFA in Film/Directing. After graduate school, he moved back to Delaware to be close to family and “continue networking with the local filmmakers” he met during his undergraduate work.

During and after his academic tenure, Remmler began to direct the series of thirteen short films that gained him recognition and future collaborators. He has worked in live-action, animation, and stop-motion filmmaking, “with each project’s flaws propelling me forward to improve the following piece.” He notes that one of the biggest challenges is knowing whether the next film will be “good,” by which he means not just “from a quality standpoint, but how watchable the film is.” Remmler chooses to finish every work he begins, believing that “I would consider any of my films failures if I didn’t finish them.”

Remmler is rewarded by the joy of calling “Cut!” on a take he’s pleased with, and he is consistently inspired by his fellow Delaware filmmakers, one of the reasons he returned to the First State. He cites Gordon DelGiorno of Film Brothers, Rob Waters, Kevin Austra, Raghav Peri, Brian Wild, and Lisa Black as colleagues who have “shown me the pathway to getting my first feature film completed and seen.”

That first feature, titled 4 Clones Alone, is well underway. It’s a comedy with sci-fi undertones that is currently in the editing stage, and Remmler plans to use his award to “give my feature film its final push past the finish line,” marketing it and submitting it to film festivals nationwide. Receiving a Fellowship means that “someone looked at my work and recognized my potential merit. For that, I am very grateful.”

 

 

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