Johan Vandewoestijne

Johan Vandewoestijne was born on August 26th 1961 in Kortrijk Belgium Europe At very young age he showed interest for television and cinema He studied chemistry and afterwards he went to a filmschool in BrusselsThe filmschool was a great disappointment since he always said and today more than ever that cinema is much more entertainment than it is art At the filmschool they claimed the opposite So very rapidly he understood that this was not a place for him to stay So he left after two years He joined a video production team by the name of Acces Video and assisted with the lighting of corporate videos In 1985 he left the company to start up a feature film project entitled Lucker which became a cult classic very soon In 1988 he produced Rabid Grannies Troma inc picked up the film and did the distribution upon this day It was a 20 year contract and when that was expired Michael Herz asked him to prolonged it with another 20 years In 1988 Lloyd Kaufman from Troma Inc asked him to do something about his name Vandewoestijne means from the desert Lloyd said that Vandewoestijne for others than Flemish or Dutch was difficult to pronounce so Johan changed his name into James Desert Till today Johan or James if you like is producing and directing low budget horror and exploitation films always English spoken Thats why some people also name him The Roger Corman of the low countries a surname he seems to like For many years his films were distributed by Troma Inc but the last five years he has a collaboration with Jeffrey Swanson of SGL entertainment located in Concord California