Filmmaker Statement

"Teen Troubles in Dirty Jersey" is a short film and the official visual album for the newly released “Teen Troubles” by Korean indie rock artist The Black Skirts, real name Bryan. The entire script, its events and characters, are based on Bryan’s memories of the Summer of 1999 as a rebellious 17-year old punk in poor suburban New Jersey with his friends John, Lara, Bosko, and Electra, who were all non-Asian. My goal was to capture their disaffected angst, delinquent freedom, and dysfunctional love for each other, as well as dramatically recreating his heart getting broken by a girl he was in boyish head-over-heels love with. I wanted to tell a stylized narrative within the album film format, where my goal was to both indulge in nostalgia while also capturing its relationship with trauma. It's a coming-of-age exploration of the melancholy that can sometimes come with even our happiest memories.