“In order to take the next step (not forward or backwards, but only: to go on) it is often necessary (for me) to lean on a picture made by someone else, sometimes a word will do, a gesture, the look on a stranger's face. Colin Campbell made the next step possible for me so I took up a video camera (his pictures were my company, and my camera accompanied his pictures). Between his images of the past and mine, Colin Campbell emerged as a Cold Warrior, as an artist who would fight the Cold War with stereo. Yes, a stereo artist! Fascination contains only the pictures I would find in my camera when I reviewed the material in the morning, after all the serious work had been done (while I and all the others who spoke his language, lay sleeping).” - Mike Hoolboom

A metabiopic about the Canadian pioneer of the video scene and icon of the drag scene, Colin Campbell, who died in 2001. And therefore also about the development of television, the Cold War and the shadow of a master.

“‘Fascination’ offers glimpses of Campbell's often hilarious attempts to subvert the tropes of television, casting himself as its brightest star. The lively and eagerly audacious nature of Campbell's work makes it a strong counterpoint to Hoolboom's weightier pronouncements on time and image in the atomic age, as well as the raw demonstrations of grief by the people Campbell left behind. ” - Jason Anderson, Eye Weekly

“A documentary that is part biography of times and events that shaped the sculptor-turned-video artist, and part examination of the filmed image, the relations we leave behind, and a meditation on what creates an artist. Mike Hoolboom has created a singularly unique biographical documentary.” - Donovan Aikman, Victoria Independent Film & Video Festival

Selected screenings: Ann Arbor Film Festival, 2007; International Film Festival Rotterdam, 2006; Images Festival, Toronto (opening night film), 2006; Visions du Reel, Nyon, 2006; European Media Art Festival, Osnabruck, 2006; Split International Film Festival, Croatia, 2006.