Filmmaker Statement

In my work I am motivated by a desire to complicate our understanding of what it means to be queer on screen and in life. The film is deeply personal - I identify with both Leo and Eleanor, and their love for each other, as well as that feeling of just missing each other, of not quite connecting in the same way. It is an experience I’ve felt in my own friendships as I've gotten older, and an experience I’ve found to be particularly inflected by my transition and a sense that the underlying dynamics in my relationships with women friends has shifted. SUMMER SOLSTICE is an observational study of two characters--one a trans man, one a cisgender woman--as they confront the shifting dynamics in their relationship when their relationship is no longer a ‘female friendship’ in which they are both ‘one of the girls.’ This is a story about friendship that is specific in scope, but I hope will resonate with all those who have ever had (and lost) a best friend in the process of growing up.