As the winner of the 2002 Young Hollywood ‘One to Watch’ Award and a Golden Globe nominee for the television series Fargo, GIFF is proud to have Colin Hanks serve as a member of the Executive Board and as the director of GIFF’s 2015 Opening Night Film, All Things Must Pass.
Hanks was born in Sacramento, California and studied theater at Loyola Marymount University. His career skyrocketed quickly, as he landed his lauded roles in the filmsOrange County (2002), King Kong (2005), and W. (2008). Hanks went on to find even more success in television. Although Hanks contends that there is no vast difference between working in film and television, he says, “with TV, if you are lucky, people become far more invested in a characters’ journey due simply to the fact the audience gets to spend more time with them.” He is walking proof of this theory, as he has helped the Showtime series Dexter (2011) achieve a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series with his portrayal of the character Travis Marshall. Last year, he was nominated for three awards—a Critics’ Choice, a Primetime Emmy, and a Golden Globe—for his role as Officer Gus Grimly in the television series Fargo (2014). Hanks’ ability to combine a sense of comedy and drama in his roles has allowed him to progress as an actor while continuously connecting with audiences.
When he is not acting, at a concert or sports event, or at home with his wife and kids, Hanks has now taken on a new role in his directorial debut of All Things Must Pass (2015). This full-length documentary charts the rise and fall of Tower Records, a one-time empire record chain that closed its doors across America in 2006. Beginning inside a small drug store in Sacramento, California in the 1940s and turning into a chain of 189 stores worldwide, Hanks was shocked to find that no one had turned this company’s journey into a documentary. Having grown up buying records and concert tickets at Tower and being an avid vinyl collector, Hanks decided to take matters into his own hands. The film is comprised of analyses of Internet music downloading trends, investigations into the company’s tragic bankruptcy and liquidation, and interviews with music business experts. Hanks’ vision adds a deeper message to the film: nothing is guaranteed in life, and time moves very fast. Hanks takes an inanimate object like a vinyl record and connects it to human mortality beautifully.