Joel Gunz

President & Host, HitchCon, MacGuffin Media & The Hitchcockian Quarterly

A writer and filmmaker, Joel loves bringing together people from all backgrounds to seek meaning and find common ground through a shared interest in film. His dream project, HitchCon, has grown to become the world’s largest annual conference dedicated to the artistry of Alfred Hitchcock. MacGuffin Media extends the spirit of that multicultural event into a streaming platform and twice-weekly movie nights, where noted film scholars rub shoulders with casual fans. Known online as the Alfred Hitchcock Geek, he now publishes his own and others’ research in The Hitchcockian Quarterly.

Joel’s film essays combine personal history with original scholarship, blending the two with special effects that re-examine his lifelong, fraught relationship with reality. His latest such film, Spellbound by L’Amour Fou, won Best Short Documentary at the Medusa Film Festival.  Joel and his partner, Christy La Guardia, live with their beagle, Charlie, in Olympia, Washington.