“The story and imagery for this short comes from a love of the tarot and the story telling inherent in its imagery. I just wanted to make something that had coins, batons, swords, and of course the hermit and magician. So I kind of threw those elements together a dream-logic story.”
Read More“The idea stems from my mom cutting my hair in our living room apartment when I was a kid. It was an uncomfortable experience then. I have vivid images of how she used to put newspaper on the ground. Bright sunlight streaming in from the window. I have an overall sense of nostalgia about the experience.”
Read More“I guess the idea was I am a narcissist; no, you know what? There was the initial image of me eating ice cream, so I shot that first and I didn’t know what I would do with it, but I shot that in October 2019, and I just set my phone up on a tripod and did the best I could; but that was inspired by a scene from “A Ghost Story.” I was inspired.”
Read More“I’d always loved film and on a whim applied to this program in California, like a state-run summer school for art kids. While there I saw a lot of formative films and was pushed to make personal work for the first time. Something clicked and I dyed my hair green, gave myself this terrible faux hawk, and went home knowing I wanted to make movies.”
Read More“I had the idea for a while to make a short about a well-meaning con artist. I also wanted to write something about an encounter between two women who have bad boundaries that present in opposite ways. Amy’s character takes up space and brings a frenetic, claustrophobic intimacy to the dynamic, while Brenna’s feels an obligation to take care of and open her life to this wanderer.”
Read More“I wanted to embody the artificiality. I made the entire thing artificial. It became interesting that the entire world could be constructed digitally. This added uncanny tension on set and in the final viewing experience.”
Read More“Coming out had left me with some confusion and shame around my femininity. It was something I had to abandon and reclaim. I wanted to make something about a highly feminine queer who felt suffocated by labels, and who, even for a moment, questioned if her outward presentation matched who she was inside.”
Read More“The initial idea came from a traumatic, recurring nightmare I had about being pressured and guilted into a last minute adult bar mitzvah by my parents. Josh and I used this as a starting off point and fused our family get together experiences growing up to create an ensemble story with deep meaning, and logic puzzles to pore over.”
Read More“It wasn't clear if I was striking the right tone. There's a moment in the film, which always makes me laugh, where some erotic drawings are revealed (spoiler alert). Initially, I wasn't sure if it was cringe and/or would take away from the rest of the film. I went back and forth on whether to do it, asking friends. My friends liked the idea so we shot it and I'm glad it's in there.”
Read More“I grew up without cable tv and was always hanging out at my friends homes. It was at their houses where I’d catch episodes of That’s So Raven and TRL, and finally understand what everyone else at school was talking about. Without that immediate entertainment source at home, I made my own fun by going on less conventional adventures and through that, creating stories for myself.”
Read More“In March of 2017, I lost my dad, whom this film is dedicated to. The ensuing isolation from that grief created a starkly chilly, empty, quiet ambience within my house; a hazy, invisible fog. I live with my mom and sister and we are tight knit but I think the three of us were sort of coping separately in our own ways.”
Read More“Everybody is constantly searching for "success" but it means a thousand different things to a thousand different people. The cruel joke of it all is that even when you do accomplish some goal, the feeling of accomplishment is usually fleeting and quickly replaced by some new set of ideals.”
Read More“The biggest challenge was working with a five year old and two year over about a 2.5 day shoot. They don't want to act, they just wanna mess around and eat candy. We felt bad for asking so much of them but they delivered and are definitely the highlight of the film along with Karolena.”
Read More“I wanted to explore a moment in life when our moral compass isn’t totally formed, and we’re trying to navigate group dynamics, without having a real grasp on who we are as individuals. Neda Jebelli, who co-wrote the script with me, spoke about her experiences growing up between Tehran and Missouri -a stark contrast to my upbringing in Bogota, Colombia.”
Read More“The Courtesy was inspired by the viral clip of Eliah Louis, a ten year old boy, hiding from a cop car. It's just a tragic showing of the mental health of children of color when it comes to police relations. I saw the clip and it made me frustrated, angry and ultimately inspired to create, to be reactive.”
Read More“The biggest challenge was trying to figure out how to take a musical work, which is purely auditory, and distill it into something visual. Do you take a literal interpretation of the lyrics and craft a story from those? Do you go abstract? Do you just try to tap into a certain mood? I think ultimately what became most important for me was texture.”
Read More“My brother and I work as a commercial electricians and had to complete the exact type of on-site training for an endangered turtle as in the short. Watching a wildlife biologist interact with uninterested construction workers was fascinating and felt synonymous, in part, with our current political divide.”
Read More“I’ve always been attracted to failed technologies. It is interesting what things catch on and what things don’t. People thought the segway was going to revolutionize transportation and everyone in the future would just be on segways all the time. I think the toe shoes were similar, a technology that was supposed to change how shoes were made but ended up becoming obsolete and weird.”
Read More“I’m from Atlanta, GA—the eastside of the city. Went to college at Howard University in DC for two years then ending up transferring to New York University. But my interest in filmmaking actually began as a writer. I would write treatments for my friends music videos in HS and it slowly evolved into something I wanted to explore deeper in college.”
Read More“I played soccer for a large portion of my life and it’s something I know well, but I didn’t want to make a film explicitly about the sport. Instead I decided to incorporate the notion of soccer and build something around that. Most of my ideas for anything stem from photos / images.”
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