Shadow Axe

H. Paul Moon is a filmmaker based in New York City and Washington, D.C. whose works concentrate on the performing arts. Major films include “Sitka: A Piano Documentary” about the craftsmanship of Steinway pianos, “Quartet for the End of Time” about Olivier Messiaen’s transcendent WWII composition, and an acclaimed feature film about the life and music of American composer Samuel Barber that premiered on PBS. He was cinematographer/camera operator/colorist for director Josephine Decker's “First Day Out” in the anthology film “collective:unconscious.” Rolling Stone called it “a Malick-esque portrait,” Austin Chronicle acclaimed the “Lubezki-level single-shot photography,” New Yorker cited the “ecstatically onrushing continuous takes,” and Slant Magazine praised the “intricate and exhilarating tracking shots” with “explosively colorful cinematography.”

His film “The Passion of Scrooge” was an operatic adaptation of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” awarded “Critic's Choice” by Opera News as a “thoroughly enjoyable film version, insightfully conceived and directed” with “first-rate and remarkably illustrative storytelling.” The Dickensian called it “a beguiling formal experiment to bring Dickens’ classic into contemporary and personal relevance” and “a distinctive addition to the long history of Carol adaptations.” The film was the inaugural title of “Opera Philadelphia Channel Presents” in 2022.

Moon has created music videos for numerous composers including Moondog, Susan Botti and Angélica Negrón, and three opera films set in a community garden. He is currently finishing another documentary feature about Western poetry, further additions to his project “Whitman on Film,” and settings of poems by Bob Holman.

His films have been screened to live audiences at over two hundred film festivals around the world, with several awards and museum exhibitions. Highlights include works featured in exhibitions at the Nevada Museum of Art and the City Museum of New York, PBS television broadcasts, and best of show awards in over a dozen international film festivals.