Philip
Hoffman

Philip Hoffman (born 1955) is a Canadian filmmaker and a member of the faculty of York University. Hoffman has been described as "filmmaker of memory and association" whose "highly personal" work blends fiction and documentary and "contests the claim to the truth" that characterizes conventional documentary film. As Martha Rosler maintains Hoffman's work "provides a bridge to the classical themes of death, diaspora, memory, and finally, transcendence. Of Hoffman's 1988 film "passing through/torn formations, Stan Brakhage said the film "accomplishes a multi-faceted experience for the viewer—it is a poetic document of Family, for instance—but Philip Hoffman's editing throughout is true to thought process, tracks visual theme as the mind tracks shape, makes melody of noise and words as the mind recalls sound."