Above is a video intro George Kuchar made for a retrospective of his films in Los Angeles in 2008. The video does show off George’s offbeat humor, calling the piece “The Man Behind the Film” and then hiding his face behind the image of a filmstrip.

George Kuchar has been making underground films since the early 1950s. He began his career working with his twin brother Mike, making campy, but loving, spoofs of Hollywood melodramas when the two were teenagers growing up in NYC.

Eventually, the brothers went in their own directions and George moved to the West Coast to become a film professor at the San Francisco Art Institute. At the school, George began collaborating with his students to direct no-budget, largely improvised films. Outside the classroom, he would obsessively videotape events in his life, including the trips he would take regularly to the midwest to witness tornadoes and other weather phenomenon.

His most famous film is most likely the poignant, semi-autobiographical Hold Me While I’m Naked (1966).

You can read more about George and Mike Kuchar at their Facebook fan page.

You can also watch the documentary It Came From Kuchar online.