Rialto Channel’s auteur of the month, featuring in Sunday evening’s Director’s Series throughout April, is Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg, regarded as one of the world's most iconic and controversial filmmakers.

Thanks to his journalist father and piano playing mother, Cronenberg grew up with a love of music and writing, but when he entered the University of Toronto he studied science. A year later, disillusioned with his initial choice, he switched to the Honors English Language and Literature program and in 1967 graduated top of his class.

During this time Cronenberg became fascinated with experimental film, producing short films such as From the Drain and Stereo, and with the assistance of funding from the CFDC (Canadian Film Development Corporation) he made Crimes of the Future. By the early 70s Cronenberg was ready to make movies aimed at a broader audience, and in 1975 he released his debut film Shivers (1975). 

What followed was a series of low budget, intelligent and shocking horror films which earned him the cult status of horror-meister (his nicknames are the King of Venereal Horror or the Baron of Blood). Cronenberg though was never interested in being bound to one genre. In fact, his career has been a journey from grindhouse to art house through films that explore the perverse, suppressed desires of modern life, sexuality, technology and his character’s state of mind.

This variety is reflected in the works Rialto Channel is screening this month.

Dead Ringers: Sunday 7^th April, 8.30pm

Jeremy Irons plays twin gynecologists and fertility experts Elliot and Beverly Mantle, who seduce a patient who is unaware the identical brothers constantly switch identities. Cronenberg said in an interview for Dead Ringers that Jeremy Irons had to switch back and forth between Beverly and Elliot maybe 20 times a day, making the shoot a very schizophrenia-inducing process.

eXistenZ : Sunday 14^th April, 8.30pm

Cronenberg’s love of science, media and technology come together in this dark, disorientating futuristic thriller. According to All Movie Guide it was inspired by the fugitive life of author Salman Rushdie, whom Cronenberg had interviewed for a magazine. The film stars Jennifer Jason Leigh as techno-game designer Allegra Geller who is saved from an assassination by Ted Pikul, a trainee played by Jude Law. To check her latest game eXistenZ hasn’t been corrupted, the two must enter into and play this virtual reality game.

Spider: Sunday 21^st April, 8.30pm

Spider was screened in competition at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival and features a remarkable performance by Ralph Fiennes as a man descending into insanity. Based on the novel by Patrick McGrath this psychological drama tells the story of mental asylum patient, Spider (Fiennes), who is released into a halfway house near his childhood home. Memories of his childhood and the events that drove him mad come flooding back, but how truthful are Spider’s recollections? The film also stars Miranda Richardson and Gabriel Byrne.

A History of Violence: Sunday 28^th April, 8.30pm

One of my favourite David Cronenberg films, 2005’s A History of Violence received two Oscar nominations, for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role (John Hurt). It’s the story of mild mannered family man Tom (Viggo Mortensen) who becomes a small town hero when he kills a couple of criminals attacking the customers in a diner he runs. It’s an event that changes his and his family’s life in ways you can’t imagine. Viggo Mortensen went on to star in two more Cronenberg films; Eastern Promises and A Dangerous Method.