Is Gregg Araki Living or Dead?

Living or Dead? Celebrities, films, tv shows, birthdays, deaths ... your one-stop shop to satisfy your morbid curiosity.

Is American film director Gregg Araki dead? Or ... still alive?

Subscribe to Living or Dead news !!!

Celebrity death and birthday updates to your inbox!

Unsub at any time. We'll never sell your details.

By Orgate-Hamilton

Updated 6 April 2023

Image info

Artist	Vegafi
Credit	Own work
License	cc-by-sa-3.0
Desc	Gregg Araki au 36ème Festival du cinéma américain de Deauville pour la présentation en Avant Première de son film KABOOM.
Usage	Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0

Image info/credit

American film director

Gregg Araki is ...

Alive

Born	17 December 1959 in Los Angeles
Age	63 years, 6 months

Sex or gender	male
Country of citizenship	United States of America
Occupation	film director, screenwriter, film editor, cinematographer and film producer
Notable work	Mysterious Skin, Kaboom and Now Apocalypse
Educated at	University of Southern California, University of California, Santa Barbara and USC School of Cinematic Arts

About Gregg Araki

Gregg Araki is a maverick of American independent cinema, known for his provocative and boundary-pushing films that explore themes of sexuality, identity, and alienation. Born on December 17, 1959, in Los Angeles, Araki grew up in a suburb of Santa Barbara and attended the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he studied film.

Araki burst onto the scene in the early 1990s with a string of critically acclaimed and controversial films, including "The Living End" (1992), "Totally F***ed Up" (1993), and "The Doom Generation" (1995). These films, collectively known as the "Teen Apocalypse Trilogy," depicted the lives of disaffected and disillusioned young people in a world that seemed to be falling apart.

Araki's films are characterized by their bold visual style, unconventional narrative structures, and frank depictions of sex and drug use. He has been praised for his ability to capture the angst and confusion of youth, as well as his willingness to tackle taboo subjects such as homosexuality, bisexuality, and BDSM.

In recent years, Araki has continued to push boundaries with films such as "Kaboom" (2010), a surreal and sexually explicit coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of a looming apocalypse, and "White Bird in a Blizzard" (2014), a haunting and atmospheric thriller about a young woman's search for her missing mother.

Araki's work has been celebrated by critics and audiences alike, and he has been honored with numerous awards and accolades, including the Sundance Film Festival's Grand Jury Prize for "The Living End" and the Teddy Award for Best Feature Film at the Berlin International Film Festival for "Mysterious Skin" (2004).

Despite his success, Araki remains a fiercely independent filmmaker who is unafraid to take risks and challenge conventions. As he once said in an interview, "I'm not interested in making movies that are safe or that people have seen before. I want to make movies that are exciting and that push boundaries."

References:

- "Gregg Araki: The Teen Apocalypse Trilogy" by Dennis Lim, The Criterion Collection

- "Gregg Araki: The Art of the New Queer Cinema" by Mark Harris, Rolling Stone

- "Gregg Araki: 'I'm not interested in making movies that are safe'" by Xan Brooks, The Guardian