Mark Borchardt

Mark Borchardt is an American independent filmmaker. He is best known as the subject of the 1999 film American Movie: The Making of Northwestern, which documented two years he spent writing, shooting and editing his horror short, Coven (1997). Borchardt was born and raised in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. His mother Monica is Swedish. He started making films at the age of fourteen with a super-8 camera that he bought from a garage sale for $40. Aft... more

Mark Borchardt is an American independent filmmaker. He is best known as the subject of the 1999 film American Movie: The Making of Northwestern, which documented two years he spent writing, shooting and editing his horror short, Coven (1997). Borchardt was born and raised in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. His mother Monica is Swedish. He started making films at the age of fourteen with a super-8 camera that he bought from a garage sale for $40. After serving three years in the military, he continued his cinematic endeavors at the local university. In the mid-nineties, he wrote and produced Halloween radio dramas which were broadcast annually and won a fellowship from the Milwaukee Art Futures Board. Filmmakers Chris Smith and Sarah Price began filming Borchardt while he was attempting to put together funding for his unfinished feature Northwestern. After the project collapsed, Borchardt decided instead to finish Coven, which he had started years earlier. After Coven was completed, Smith... less