The Dirty Ones

In Paris, a young American working as a Michael Jackson lookalike meets Marilyn Monroe, who invites him to her commune in Scotland, where she lives with Charlie Chaplin and her daughter, Shirley Temple.

The story of two sixteen year old girls living in Hollywood, Florida. We follow the girls on a road trip to Tennessee, and watch as their lives become complicated by lies, jealousy and love.

16mm roll of film, unedited and silent of Rachel tasting snow.

The film (runtime 70 mins) collages documentary footage of small town USA (Kentucky and West Tennessee), with a narrative structure, karaoke, poetry and slapstick puppetry. The plot loosely follows Tyler and Nola Jane, a brother and sister struggling to conform to their small town environment. Their world begins to unravel when confronted by twin-like strangers, Phocian and Faith, who have lackadaisical aspirations of forming a queer love cult and distorting Confederate symbology. Phocian and Faith traverse the landscape like childish clowns. They speak in riddle and ultimately cause the other characters to join their antics. Confederitis explores disturbing aspects of Southern culture and the impotence of escapism in our current political climate. Confederitis melds film genre and was shot on multiple formats and film stocks such as: Super 8mm, 16mm, Hi-8, Betamax, VHS, HD, cellphone, and more.

Bill Best, a veteran of the Vietnam War, spends his days and nights in the grip of an empty routine; whiskey, cigarettes and television form a taut border around the perimeter of his life. But beneath the surface of his everyday regime, Bill is anxiously awaiting the arrival of Gwynn, a mail-order bride from Vietnam. As the pair finally meet and settle in, the economic agreement that brought them together grow increasingly overshadowed by the ghosts of their shared past and the hope of a brighter future.