Matt Brookens is a short and feature filmmaker who is a writer-director and producer, whose film The Art of Pain won Best Feature Comedy at the Route 66 Film Festival. Career First works Brookens, originally from Springfield, Illinois, graduated from Columbia College Chicago in 1999, who included his film The Ancient Order of Human Resources in a Southern California 2016 retrospective in Sherman Oaks. He started making short comedy-horror films in the Chicago area in the early 2000s with his brother Greg. These first efforts were examples of low-budget guerrilla filmmaking and include Skunk Ape!? and Of Bass and Men. The Art of Pain Brookens made the feature-length The Art of Pain and released it in 2008, concurrent with his move to Los Angeles, California. The movie won awards for Best Feature Comedy at the Route 66 Film Festival, and Audience Award at the Sunscreen Film Festival. In a retrospective review in 2011 at the website cultureblues.com, reviewer Jeremiah White observed "The rough edges of a low-budget, debut feature are frequently visible, but more notable is how often it's a surprisingly well-conceived, self-assured and entertaining little piece of filmmaking." The film’s credits include an acting role by Lloyd Kaufman and fight choreography by Wesley Chu. Recent Works Brookens has made a number of additional short films including the award-winning Guitar Party Nightmare featured at Funnyordie.com. Other interests Brookens has noted (in 2008) that he was also involved in "songwriting, drawing crazy cartoons, tortoise husbandry, and unicorns."
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