My films engage with these questions and tensions through various methods, including silent storytelling, unreliable verbal confessions, analog film distortion, found home movie footage, janky VHS-C images, and explosive colors painted onto film leader. Whether I create characters of few words or protagonists who can’t stop prattling, my goal is to showcase the fragility of self-awareness. My films range from narrative to experimental, but all of them ask questions about what it means to be a happy person. What is going on beneath an apparently content psyche? How can lighthearted silliness betray unseen simmering despair? How reliable are our most meaningful social connections? My films trace a fine line between intimacy and isolation, creating worlds in which all social connections, even our connection to the self, are called into question. I love to showcase the tenuous nature of rational behavior by depicting a sense of self and community that stands on thin ice.
Like that photo up there? It was taken by my partner, the one and only John W. Roberts.