Michael Arbouet

Michael J. Arbouet (born 15 April 1971 in New York) is an award-winning director, writer and producer.

Early years

Arbouet was born in Brooklyn and raised on Long Island, New York to Haitian father Jean-Claude Arbouet, a pharmacist, and Panamanian mother Ruth Prince, a cardiac cath lab technician. He has two siblings, Kevin and Helene. He received his primary and secondary education while growing up on Long Island. After graduating from Kellenberg Memorial High School in 1989, Arbouet enrolled at the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University, where he majored in Film and Communications and graduated with a BFA. He also became a Brother of the Alpha Epsilon Pi Fraternity, one of the first African American to do so.

Movie career

He formed his own film production company Arbo Pictures in 2000 and since then he has produced and directed low-budget films. Arbouet broke in to the film industry with the award winning film short he directed and produced called New York Minute. This was followed by Serial, a film he produced with his brother Kevin Arbouet, Larry Strong and Alan Spindel.

He teamed up with New York City native and writer Richard Signorelli on the picture How To Grow a Fig Tree (2007), an urban coming of age movie set in the Brooklyn/Queens area with an Italian backdrop. The film went on to win the Accolade Competition for Best Short film.^[1]

Arbouet has also appeared as an extra in the film I Believe in America (2007) and in the film The Girl in the Watermelon (1993). He was also featured in Portraits in Dramatic Time,^[2] from the artist David Michalek, presented as part of the 2011 Lincoln Center Festival at Lincoln Center.

Michael produced the low-budget independent crime drama, Send No Flowers (2013),^[3] starring Sean Young (Blade Runner, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective) and Gianni Russo (The Godfather, Any Given Sunday). Director Fred Carpenter, impressed with Arbouet, stated that “It takes someone like Arbouet that has that special kind of vision and understanding of how a movie is put together, to make a low budget feature look like a Hollywood film is simply amazing.”

At the 2013 Long Island International Film Expo, Send No Flowers won several awards,^[4] including a Best Cinematography in a Feature Film, Best Editing in a Feature Film, Best Original Score for a Feature Film, Best Actor in a Feature Film and the Audience Award.

Filmography

• 2004 : New York Minute (short film) : Director, Screenplay
• 2005 : Falling : Director
• 2007 : 4000 : Director
• 2007 : I Could Have Been Five Feet : Director
• 2007 : How to Grow a Fig Tree : Director
• 2007 : Serial by Larry Strong and Kevin Arbouet : Executive Producer
• 2008 : Last Day of Summer by Vlad Yudin : EPK Cinematographer
• 2011 : Portraits in Dramatic Time by David Michalek : Actor
• 2012 : The Night Never Sleeps by Fred Carpenter : Actor
• 2013 : Send No Flowers by Fred Carpenter : Producer
• 2013 : Police State by Kevin Arbouet : Actor
• 2014 : Cigarette Soup by Damian Voerg : Actor
• 2015 : The Bistro : Director, Screenplay
• 2015 : Star Trek: Eye of the Tempest by Kenneth Thomson Jr. : Actor
• 2016 : Almost Paris by Domenica Cameron-Scorsese : Actor
• 2016 : Fair Market Value by Kevin Arbouet : Actor
• 2016 : Reality Sets In (web series) by Scott Brooks and Lauren Martin : Actor
• 2017 : Rich Boy, Rich Girl by Judy San Roman and Andrew Damon Henriques : Actor
• 2017 : The Art of the Hustle : Director
• 2017 : Gates Avenue (web series) by Michael Arbouet and Richard Signorelli : Series Creator, Director, Producer

References

External links

• Michael Arbouet at the Internet Movie Database
• Michael Arbouet on Facebook
• Michael Arbouet on Twitter
  
• New York Times story on Long Island International Film Expo (from 2005)
• Filmmakers.com story on How To Grow a Fig Tree (from 2007)
• Newsday story on Michael J. Arbouet talks about the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off 30 years later (from 2016)