I am very excited to invite you to an upcoming event, hosted by a new initiative I’ve started with my brother. It’s the crowdfunding launch party of two documentary films, one that I am directing and one that we are helping support. The event is July 23rd at 7:30PM at Zeitgeist Art Gallery and Bar. The event will mark the start of two crowdfunding campaigns for the exciting films and the start of our new initiative.

There are two things that I’d like to share with you that I’m starting: a documentary called Make Use of Suffering and a new initiative to help Triangle filmmakers fundraise for short documentaries called Film Fundraising Partners (www.filmfundraising.com)  part of the quiet war I am waging against the algorithms. Oh, and you’re invited to a party! Tickets and info are here.

But first… a quick thought about Bilbo and a dragon..

These strange times call for bold storytelling and bold action, that much seems certain. On Friday, there is a chance to get an early look at an innovative documentary project, one that breaks away from the current trends to bring people together for unique, live events. Register for tickets here.

The documentarian in me has become obsessed with the deterioration of our media environments and the impact this has on our views of reality. I’ve become fascinated by the grotesque quantity of video content being generated from all corners of the world and the extent to which forces can manipulate the content to their benefit.

... Some people have a fire burning so hot that it singes the edges of their life. Relationships, passions, work, the fire touches everything, and unknown at first to that person, it begins to steer the very course of their life. It’s as if they are stumbling through darkness, chasing the only thing they can see: a fire, offering warmth and security, ahead of them, calling to them.

There was a tornado warning in December. I heard it on the radio as I drove from coffee shop to coffee shop in downtown Durham. The long, drawn-out beeping followed by the mechanical voice of the national weather service issuing commands to shelter in place interrupted Sublime’s “Santeria” playing on 96.1 out of the worn-down speakers of my 2005 Toyota Corolla.

It’s the kind of morning that only happens in late summer: a chilled breeze breaks an otherwise torpid heat. The air carries scents of a few recently fallen leaves. Grey skies give way to a darker horizon where lightning flashes before I’ve had a sip of my first cup of coffee.

This documentary started roughly ten years ago, when I first met Tony Johnson… I was studying at Duke University doing whatever the heck 20-year-old boys do while "studying" at Duke (in my case: I drank a lot and read a lot), and one Saturday afternoon I found my way into a dance studio off East Campus.

Senior Night is an experiment in style. It sets out to answer a specific question: What would a documentary look like if all details were to stay inside a very strict narrative frame without any political, moral, psychological, or cultural context being supplied by the filmmaker?

There's a lot more that can be said about this project than will be said in this short post. The complex experience of my grandfather living as a half-Jewish person under the Third Reich deserves a whole book, which I may write one day.

I produced this short film alongside two of my closest childhood friends, Matt Brondoli and Zach Goldberg. We had just graduated college and somehow found our way into a little bit of money (long story that I may write about another time) to produce a film about a charity in Maidenhead.