Filmmaker Statement

In DAD SWAP, I swap my real dad out with his best friend and nemesis, Ron Swartz.   I direct Ron to be my new dad and give me the unconditional love and support that I’ve found lacking my entire life. In doing so, I attempt to rewire my brain and liberate myself from the futile quest for my dad’s approval.   The movie is a kind of shameless payback. It’s MY movie. I’M in charge. This is MY crew, and they point the cameras where I tell them to, not him. I get to force my dad to watch as Ron Swartz replaces him and does a better job at being my dad. Blurring documentary and fiction, we play heightened versions of ourselves in an unscripted family experiment. It’s part vérité, part reality TV, part family melodrama. At its core, DAD SWAP is about emotional misfires—how grand gestures replace simple words like I love you or I’m proud of you. If my dad had ever said those things, I wouldn’t need to make this movie. But since he hasn’t, this is how I tell him I wish he had.