Ari Gold has been nominated for and won dozens of awards, including the Student Oscar for his short film Helicopter. His films have screened at Sundance, Karlovy-Vary, Rio, and hundreds of other festivals. Most recently, The Song of Sway Lake was released and hailed as an offbeat, continually intriguing family-recriminations drama. Co-written and directed by Ari Gold, the story centers on Ollie, a record collector who, with a friend, Nikolai, makes a furtive trip to his family’s lakefront summer home in upstate New York, months after where Ollie’s father committed suicide in the icy lake. The film has won 3 awards with a total of 8 nominations, has been reviewed by the New York Times, Roger Ebert, and Film Threat to name a few metacritics. Adventures of Power is a cult comedy about a mine worker who discovers an underground subculture of air-drummers that has the power to change the world. The film was written and directed by Ari Gold, starring Ari Gold, Michael McKean, Jane Lynch, Shoshannah Stern, Chiu Chi Ling, and Adrian Grenier and featuring Steven Williams, Jimmy Jean-Louis, Annie Golden and Nick Kroll, with a cameo performance by Rush drummer Neil Peart. The film features a soundtrack with original music written by Gold's brother, Ethan Gold, and hits by Rush, Mr. Mister, Judas Priest, Phil Collins, Dazz Band, Loverboy, Bow Wow Wow, and Woody Guthrie. Although the film was not released by a studio, it was influential to several Hollywood comedies such as The Hangover and I Love You, Man. Upon the film's DVD release, Gold collaborated with the VH1 Save the Music Foundation to create Power Saves the Music, a charity auction with rock and roll memorabilia donated by Rush, Aerosmith, Phish, Ringo Starr, Styx, Ween, Weezer, Wilco, and others, to raise funds for school music programs for children. Helicopter is a short film dealing with the aftermath of the death of Gold's mother, Melissa Gold, in the helicopter crash that also took the life of rock impresario Bill Graham and pilot Steve Kahn. An experimental narrative combining animated sequences and live action, the film was awarded a Student Oscar and also won awards at SXSW Film Festival and a number of other film festivals. Culture, which Gold directed and starred in, is a 60-second short film, shot entirely in one take with no rehearsal. Gold followed set of self-imposed rules while making the film, including “only black, white, & primary colors may be used” and “the camera must not move.” Culture premiered in the United States at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival, and Reel.com called it “the best sixty seconds of film” at that festival. Although Culture has no dialogue, it offers a commentary on contemporary film and television. The comedic short Frog Crossing, which Gold co-directed with Jamie Babbit, has screened at Sundance Film Festival and was named Best Short at San AntonioUnderground Film Festival. In the film, Gold plays a hippie standing by the side of a road, trying to protect the frogs crossing the road during their mating season. Gold's sister Nina also stars in the film. Some of Ari's more unusual distinctions include winning High Times Magazine’s "Stoner of the Year" award, Snoop Dogg won the following year. He's also enshrined in the Guinness Book of World Records for commanding the largest air-drum ensemble on earth. His next fiction project, currently in development, is a game-changing action-adventure film about ecology, war, and the liberation of the human spirit.
Filmography
Feature Films
Short Films
Music
Gold is an occasional member of two comedic music projects. With The Brothers Gold, with his brother Ethan Gold on guitar, Ari sings and plays ukulele. Gold also sings in the new wave folk bandThe Honey Brothers. The Honey Brothers started small in 2001 by singing for people on the street corners of New York. Since then, they have released 2 studio albums, 1 live album, and even made a guest appearance on the TV show 90210. The other members of The Honey Brothers are Andrew Vladeck, Daniel Posner, Dan Green, and Adrian Grenier, star of the HBO series Entourage. Gold's brother Ethan Gold is a former member of the band.
