Films

One day in middle school, the guidance counselor asked to see me. She wanted to talk about my future. I sat quietly in a cramped chair while she looked down at my transcript. She didn’t say anything for ten whole minutes. I started feeling nervous. Margaret Duffy was in her late forties but looked much older, exhausted actually. She had gray eyes and thin lips. I don’t know what color her hair was because it wasn’t actually hair. She began tapping her fingers on the desk, then looked up. Are you good with your hands, she said. I told her all about playing short stop in little league baseball, so yes I was good with my hands. Ms. Duffy seemed unconvinced. What’s your goal in life? she asked. What do you want to be when you grow up? Oh, I wanna be a pole vaulter, I said with conviction. Poor Margaret, she thought I was hopeless.

I always had mixed feelings about academic life, and when I became really restless on the job I’d think back to the episode with Margaret Duffy. Maybe she was right. Maybe I should be working with my hands. So I started making films and that seemed to do the trick. All these wires, filters, batteries, lenses, tripods—my hands never felt so giddy. My first film was about Italian-Americans in Brooklyn, a 30-minute documentary on a peculiar Saints festival. It’s a very cute film, by the way. All these stocky Italian types with that patented mafioso look. After my first three films (top row), I lost my cinematic innocence and began chasing something else (2nd row). Still not sure what that is but it feels postlapsarian. 

Kind of a biopic that seeks to capture the compelling presence of Momaday as a literary performer.

A doc about the disappearance of traditional Ireland after the country's makeover as an American-style consumer culture during so-called Celtic Tiger.

An essay film about my dad, a hip musician who was later diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.