Adventure of a lifetime: Producer and Army vet Dwjuan Fox seeks humanitarian justice at home and abroad
From studying visual arts at Arts Academy to commanding tanks in South Korea, Fox has seen it all. A life lived both within and beyond the arts has given him a unique perspective on what it means to help other humans in need.
Producer and Army vet Dwjuan Fox relaxes during a trip to Venice.
For Dwjuan Fox (IAA 87-89), the best way to live your life is to let it flow and see where it takes you. One look at the Detroit native’s biography proves that life has taken him in myriad directions: he’s an Interlochen alumnus, family man, Army veteran, visual artist, and gifted film producer who runs his own production company, Decipher Entertainment. Throughout the many twists and turns of Fox’s career, he’s remained true to his love for adventure and heart for humanitarian needs. He shares his journey through Interlochen Arts Academy and beyond—from making movies with Star Wars legend Mark Hamill to maneuvering people and gear across the globe to make a film about the diplomats who opposed Hitler’s genocide.
Discovering his style at Interlochen
For Fox, who came to Interlochen as a junior and studied visual arts, Interlochen was the perfect training ground for a life of creativity. Under the stately pines, Fox challenged himself academically, tackled issues he felt passionate about, and completely transformed his artistic style.
“I used to learn from a public school history textbook with torn pages and writing all over it,” Fox remembers. “Then I walked into my first history class at Interlochen, and they dropped Machiavelli's The Prince in front of me. That's a big difference.”
During his education in the visual arts, Fox learned to express deeply-held emotions and shed light on issues happening in the world around him.
“I was at Interlochen during apartheid, so a lot of my work dealt with injustice and being an African-American in the U.S. or being an African-American in the world,” he says. “I wanted to get people thinking about society and evoke powerful emotions through abstraction.”
As he soon discovered, Fox’s years at Interlochen put him several strides ahead of his artistic peers.
“When I got to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the kids who were coming from the public schools were still learning things that I had already learned,” he reflects.
Fox experienced another important shift around this time. Instead of pursuing the visual arts, as he’d originally planned, he started expressing his ideas through film.
“I realized that I could tell a better story if I had more frames to work with as opposed to just one,” he says.
Fox (far right) with fellow crew members in Giza, Egypt.
Chasing adventure, fighting for justice
Fox’s course for the future was effectively set. After college, he began working his way up from being a production assistant to earning producer credits on over 35 films. But midway through his production career, he felt called to leave it all behind and do something completely different.
“I’d just done a documentary in Egypt where we had an amazing adventure—being chased by the Egyptian military after we tried to get a sunrise shot of the pyramids before they were open to the public,” he reminisces. “I’d also moved down to Atlanta and was doing wilderness survival training with one of my Interlochen buddies. I felt that life was a great adventure, so I started looking into the military.”
It wasn’t just the desire for thrills that motivated him. Fox wanted to do his part and make a difference.
Fox stands in his Army uniform for an official portrait.
“ My work had always had a humanitarian consciousness to it, and the war starting up in Bosnia was all about racial and religious identity,” he says. “Instead of just sitting around with my canvases and camera, I wanted to take a stand and help.”
Fox rose from the rank of sergeant to become a tank commander and then a platoon leader. Though he never made it to Bosnia (he wound up in South Korea instead), his experience in the Army shaped him in profound ways.
“ I balanced myself out,” he says. “Before I went into the military, I was just an artist with only an artist’s perspective of the world. Everything changed once I got to the army and discovered another perspective on reality.”
Fox found himself working side-by-side with individuals from a diverse array of backgrounds. He experienced camaraderie on a level that impacted him forever and emerged with new-found abilities in logistics—skills which would directly impact his film career.
Fox works with Rescuers director of photography Anka Malatyanska at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin, Germany.
From London to Rwanda: making The Rescuers
After leaving the military and earning his master’s degree at the American Film Institute, Fox quickly developed a reputation for his ability to manage people and equipment. He founded his own company, Decipher Entertainment, and began working on a variety of productions.
One particularly memorable experience was the chance to work with Mark Hamill on Virtually Heroes, a film about two self-aware characters in a Call of Duty-style video game. Hamill was “amazing to work with”, Fox recalls, and their film premiered at Sundance in the Midnight Series in 2014. A few years later, Fox worked on XX, an all-female horror anthology which also premiered at Sundance. His greatest logistical challenge, however, was The Rescuers, which Fox considers the most meaningful film of his career to date.
The Rescuers follows the journey of Stephanie Nyombayire, a young Rwandan anti-genocide activist who teams up with renowned Holocaust historian Sir Martin Gilbert. Together, they travel to interview survivors and descendants of European diplomats who rescued tens of thousands of Jews from the Nazi death camps of WWII. Known as “the righteous diplomats”, these courageous individuals faked visas and created an underground railroad to smuggle Jews to freedom.
“The Rescuers is one of the most significant pieces I've ever done,” says Fox. “We found people who were rescued and brought them back to their home countries to share their stories. Many of them were returning for the first time since the 1940s.”
As a producer, Fox’s challenge was to maneuver a large crew and equipment across 15 countries and three continents over a combined six months of filming. The work tested his abilities to the max and also brought him face-to-face with the brutal aftermath of genocide. Nyombayire lost 100 members of her family in the Rwandan Genocide of the 1990s, and while filming in her home country, the crew was exposed to mass graves left out in the open. The sight was a stark reminder that genocide isn’t just a historical tragedy, but an ongoing one. Fox knew he’d never forget it.
“It took me three days to get the smell of death off of me,” he says. “The Rescuers shows us historical models to remind us that this can never happen again. No matter what people groups are affected by genocide, we can never allow it to happen again.”
This world is a complex place, and we’re surrounded by good and evil on a daily basis. If I can illuminate that truth for my audiences, maybe inspire them to stand up for justice in their own way, I think I can be proud of that.
An Interlochen legacy
Though Fox has many fruitful years left, he’s already established quite a legacy—both through boots-on-the-ground efforts and through the provocative films he makes. These days, he continues to find success through Decipher and watches as his own children pursue their artistic gifts. Fox’s 10-year-old daughter is showing talent in the visual arts, and his son London graduated from Interlochen Arts Academy last year.
“My son went to Interlochen as a little boy and came back as a young man. Even after his first year there, he had changed so much,” Fox recalls. “I’m hoping we can send my daughter there as well. There’s just no better place for creatively-minded students.”
As Fox Jr. follows in his father’s footsteps to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Fox Sr. is finishing up his latest project, Woman in the Yard. The psychological horror movie, directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, is set to drop in March of this year. When Fox looks toward the future, he sees adventure.
“I want to continue making films that impact people and make them ask hard questions,” says Fox. “This world is a complex place, and we’re surrounded by good and evil on a daily basis. If I can illuminate that truth for my audiences, maybe inspire them to stand up for justice in their own way, I think I can be proud of that.”
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