Winners of the 2015 International Horror Hotel screenplay contest, including Doug Kaufman, third from the left. (That's Skippy the Clown in the front row.) As with any horror film, there’s a lot of tragedy in screenwriter Doug Kaufman’s scripts. But there’s a lot of life, too. You wouldn’t expect it any less from an artist who experienced more life than most of us in his first 14 years. “I was born and raised by my mom in Chicago,” Kaufman says. He now lives in Detroit. After his mom remarried a railroad professional, Kaufman began what became a series of moves across the country. “We bounced back and forth between Chicago and Boston at least eight times. And when we found a place to live, we moved [in the city] several times. There was a period of 11 years where we moved a total of 19 times.” The moves made it difficult for Kaufman to establish long-term friendships. And he was always the new kid in school. As he entered his teens, Kaufman ran into alcohol and drugs.
Championing films made in and filmmakers from the Midwest