Life After RISD: Checking in with Alum Gus Van Sant

Independent filmmaker Gus Van Sant 75 FAV has always found inspiration for his characters and narratives in unusual places. He got his start at RISD as a painter but quickly turned to filmmaking and animation studying under now legendary professors like Bob Jungels, Paul Larkin, Marian Marzyński, Aaron Siskind, and Harry Callahan. He has earned numerous awards over the years, including most recently the 2025 Campari Passion for Film Award at the Venice Film Festival for the gripping drama Dead Man’s Wire. Here he shares his thoughts about staying inspired and moments at RISD he’ll never forget.

How did your career as a filmmaker get started?
After RISD, I moved to Portland, OR and made an independent film called Mala Noche that played at gay film festivals and got me an agent. I have been making small and medium-sized feature films ever since. Dead Man’s Wire came out last year, and right now I’m writing screenplays.

What do you love about filmmaking?
I like the fact that you’re starting from scratch with each project. Each story seems to require a different concept, so you’re kind of reinventing the craft. That’s a thrill for me.

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What drives you to create new work?
I’m usually trying to make something I haven’t seen before. Mala Noche was based on an autobiographical novella by Walt Curtis, a poet in Portland. The extent to which he tortured himself trying to get close to this young guy is something I hadn’t seen. Drugstore Cowboy was original in the sense that it was written by an incarcerated person, James Fogle. When he wasn’t in jail, he was on the run and doing drugs. 

Were you inspired by other filmmakers?
I was inspired by David Lynch’s Eraserhead and [RISD 2015 Honorary Degree recipient] John Waters’ Pink Flamingos. Both of those are entirely original home-built pieces.

Did you know from the start that you would major in film at RISD?
I was a painter when I came to RISD in 1971. It was a mixed-media time for a lot of artists. Painters were becoming photographers, photographers were becoming architects. The film department [now Film/Animation/Video], led by Bob Jungels, was new, and animation was just getting started. There were 30 or 40 of us, and we were very enthusiastic. 

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Do you remember any of the films you made at RISD?
I made two shorts as a junior, one in the fall and one in the spring. The first one was called Little Johnny. It was supposed to be a joke that didn’t work, but when it played to an audience of 400 in the RISD Auditorium, it brought the house down. Little Johnny is walking his dog and talking to a nice old lady. It’s just an image of him looking up. You don’t see the woman. She says, Aren’t you a pretty little boy? What nice shoes. What’s your dog’s name? He answers, Porky. Why is his name Porky? Because he likes to fuck pigs. The audience went crazy, and I was hooked. That got me to continue making films.

What would you say RISD students or alums have in common?
I think what we share is the ability to apply that artistic energy to whatever we might be doing. There were great artists and teachers at RISD, but the other students inspired me the most.

Any outside-the-studio memories that have stuck with you?
Probably the student bands that formed when I was there. Talking Heads, of course, but also the Motels, a band called Soup that originated with [late] painter Martin Mull [65 PT/MFA 67 PT], who went on to become an actor and comedian. Every year, people would drop off and new people would carry the RISD band football. Soup morphed into Snake and the Snatch. The performances were almost like Burning Man on stage: a lot of props, great musicianship, very funny. 

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Have you kept in touch with any of your friends from RISD?
I run into the Talking Heads here and there, and one of the best cinematographers in Hollywood is RISD alum Bob Richardson [79 FAV]. I’ve also kept in touch with Dennis Congdon [75 PT], who went on to become a RISD professor, and I’ve worked on films with cinematographer Eric Edwards [75 FAV]. 

Any advice for young artists?
Work hard. And be open to whatever interests you. You can’t really tell how you’re going to use ideas and skills you pick up along the way. Stylistically, each film I make has lots of different inspirational origins that come from reading things, seeing things, and mixing them together. Something I did 20 years ago might all of a sudden be useful for the project I’m working on now. 

The ongoing Life After RISD series features alumni making outsized impact in culture and industry. Stay tuned for more from our graduates on how RISD has helped to shape their practices and the way they engage with the world.

interview by Simone Solondz / top photo by Vinh Nguyen
October 13, 2026