My Films

Starting Fresh at the Age of 65

I was allowed to make a short film for the US Forest Service when I was 21. I later worked for the Independent Feature Project, helping run its film market, in the early 1980s when American Independents were closer to the world's art cinema than a younger sibling to Hollywood storytelling. In the 1990s and 2000s I started showing films in old churches and grange halls, school auditoriums and outdoor settings, often with newly commissioned film scores. I took Jean Renoir's La Marseillaise for a series of outdoor screenings across the United States in honor of the French Bicentennial. Later resettled in Mexico, I began twice-a-week film series to pay for our English Language Library's operations.

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After my work with the IFP, I jumped the fence and co-authored screenplays and served as producer for Alexandre Rockwell and Eagle Pennell. I reviewed films for the many publications I wrote for. Served as an advisor on others' film work. Finally, retired in Mexico, I decided to try my hand at making my own films. I worked with a friend to shape and direct a short improvisational work, Cartel Roy. I shot and edited footage of a fashion show event I put on as a benefit for the library. I produced a feature and a short film for Mexican amigos (Gizmo and The Old Bones). I decided to write, fund, and direct a feature film, Don Barry, and I am working on a documentary omnibus, Poesia.

As with my journalism, my radio work, my books and my life, I am attempting to create new things. I am seeking an antidote to the confines of narrative, which have swallowed so much of our current lives' consciousness. I am pushing against the professionalism that has drained refreshing creativity from cinema. I am struggling to place the thoughtfulness of classic tales, of early literature, into the real lives we inhabit. I push for a new film language while also trying this great art form out for size within my own dreams.