Filmmaker Statement

In 2016, I embarked on what had meant to be my first, “non-student” short film. For various reasons, the production stretched out to four months and consequently ran over the micro-budget I had determined to spend for myself. Crew members began dropping out, and perhaps due to a reticence to throw more money at the project, I desperately began another short film. As a result, 408 was a second chance to do two things: first, to make something, anything, with my own camera and the resources immediately available to me; and second, to apply the inspirations and lessons I’d been collecting at the time — specifically the intramural cosmos of Chantal Akerman, the sonic universe of Robert Bresson, the comic ineffability of Luis Bunuel, and the découpage of Alain Resnais. My deepest hope with 408 is that, at the very least, it exhibits the genesis of a personal, unapologetic style replete with my wildest dreams and obsessions, one I hope to continue developing and refining until the end.