Filmmaker Statement

As a director and writer, a critical through line in all of my work has been the imaginative and at times playful exploration of masculinity and male vulnerability as it collides with the contemporary American experience. We’re fractured, we’re fragile, and we feel totally alone. My films, though fictional in nature, tend to start with a personal, autobiographical experience. I then build story and characters, like scaffolding, around that experience so that I can establish a foundation to support an in-depth personal investigation. I find this approach—distancing myself from my reality by inventing story and character—offers me the opportunity to rewrite a personal history. This is ultimately why I make films. For Scabs, which is my most personal work to date, the main character’s compulsive behavior (skin picking) is a behavior I’m embarrassed to admit I share with the film’s protagonist.