Biography

Since the mid '80s Timpson has worked in every facet of the film industry; from managing an arthouse, programming for MGM, creating short film events, running drive-ins to producing television and feature films, operating devolved government film funds and mentoring filmmakers. His distribution company released specialist product to kiwi audiences starting with Slacker in 1993. He launched the The Incredibly Strange Film Festival in 1994 that continues to this day inside the New Zealand International Film Festival. His national film competition 48HOURS with Peter Jackson as mentor began in 2003 and exposed talent such as Taika Waititi (Jo Jo Rabbit), Roseanne Liang (Shadow in the Cloud) and Gerard Johnstone (Housebound). As a producer he created the hit anthology series The ABCs of Death (TIFF 2013) and the following features The Devil Dared Me To (SXSW 2006), Housebound (SXSW 14), Turbo Kid (Sundance 15), Deathgasm (SXSW 15), The Greasy Strangler (Sundance 16) & The Field Guide to Evil (SXSW 18), Censor (Tribeca 21), Untitled David Farrier Project (22). He recently directed the critically acclaimed feature Come to Daddy (Tribeca 2020) starring Elijah Wood. His next feature directing is The Salamander Lives Twice with Adrien Brody

He was the inaugural recipient of New Zealand's Art Entrepreneur Award and is a Board member of the New Zealand Film Commission. His 35mm print archive is the largest personal film archive in the Southern Hemisphere.
- IMDb mini biography by: Ant Timpson

Has shark bite on left arm

Created the Incredibly Strange Film Festival.

He owns the biggest private collection of 35mm films in the Southern Hemisphere.

I don't have the genetic makeup to be a Mother Theresa but what I do do, I do well.

Some people are extremely disdainful of mainstream movies and will only watch crazy fringe cinema, but in my view, it's like the food pyramid; for a balanced diet, you need nourishment from all levels.

We've never had a culture of late-night horror and sci-fi flicks here like they do in the States, for example. The festival is like one person's ultimate mix-tape of eclectic counter-culture filmmaking. It's also a form of symbiotic voyeurism, because it allows me to watch other people get off on stuff that I usually get off on. Does that sound too pervy? But yeah - in a way, it's like taking people's virginity.

We spend all our time keeping this more primal side of ourselves safely under lock and key, but there's a vicarious thrill in seeing these aspects of ourselves exposed via things like cinema, music and the visual arts. The more you repress these things, the more likely they are to pop out in disturbing new ways, and cinema can be a great release valve for some of that stuff.

[Rex Reed on Come to Daddy (2019)] For no explainable reason, Norval ends up in a motel hosting a sex convention where a prostitute shoves a spike through his head from jaw to jaw. None of it makes a word of sense, & the dialogue, provides ample proof. The writing is filthy & sub-mental, the acting is uniformly dreadful, & if director Ant Timpson has any skill at all behind the camera, he successfully manages to keep it a big secret.