I remember a time before the internet, when one eagerly went out to get the newspaper for an important story or event. I remember when we weren't connected by the World Wide Web. Today is a good day to think of it as a web. Webs connect us, but they can also trap us. They make it possible for us...
I’ve been feeling a little bit out of sorts for the last few days, and yesterday I realized that tomorrow is the sixth month anniversary of my mother’s death. It keeps sneaking up on me like that. As the various weekly, or monthly, anniversaries pass, I find myself struggling in some way and then realize that my body knows something...
I have three girls, two of whom I have raised since birth. Nothing about being a parent has been easy; and frankly, as good as my intentions were when I started out, I wasn't all that prepared to be a great parent. The same is true for my parents. I have no doubt that they were passionate about being wonderful...
We have been documenting political issues for 30 years. We have been making documentaries for 20 of those. This election season we hope some programmers will consider screening these films because they help us to zoom out and get some context on where we've been, where we are, and where we are headed. https://vimeo.com/ondemand/hornsandhalos Our first political do was "Horns...
Here are a few photos I found of my parents last night as I was scanning negatives for a project with my music related photos. These are from a roll I shot while on tour with my band. Our engine had died and I stayed with them for a few days while it got repaired. Often when I was hitting...
From the moment that we found out my wife was pregnant, all I could think about was being a good parent. OK, it wasn’t the only thing I thought about, but it always hovered there as something of primary importance - a profound shift in the way that I saw myself in the world. At the time, I began to...
We all have things that are particularly difficult for us to handle; our own challenges that are unique to us. I am a terrible organizer and having to organize things, be it bills, or negatives, or records, or books, can be very difficult for me. Given this challenge, the process of getting together all of the information and the details...
I was gone for a week, and it all feels like a dream. It took me nearly 24 hours of travel to get to Thessaloniki, and I had just three nights there. It took me almost 2 days to make the trip home. I hardly slept on the journey at all, and after getting home at 5 pm yesterday I...
The following is a presentation I put together for the photo museum in Thessaloniki. I want to first thank the festival and the museum for having me here - in addition I want express my extreme appreciation to Efi Papazachariou for her help and support. It’s thanks to John Waters that I’m here today, because he chose to feature our film Who...
Last night my daughter began working on a film about her grandmother, my mother, who passed away 7 weeks ago. As her health was failing, I spent a couple of hours a day with her. During this time, I began to document her final months. There were some good moments and some tough moments. About 20 minutes ago, I was...
prepping for a scene with Unai and Katy The other morning I woke up a little early in order to go to Yoga. As I walked up to the studio my neighbor from across the street was paying for parking, which was a surprise because I had never seen her there. Then, as I signed in, the people behind me introduced...
It’s Monday Oct 7th, and tomorrow will be 4 weeks since my mother passed away. At this time, last month, I was in a car on the way to the airport in Tel Aviv. After 20 hours of travel I made it to my mother’s bedside in North Carolina with just two hours to spare before she passed away. It’s...