Director's Statement: This project is deeply personal and dear to me. As my first serious undertaking as a director, it challenged and continues to challenge me as a filmmaker. The path it took to get to its current form is laden with years of revisiting the little details and chiseling away at them. This was a masterclass in shoestring production, made with volunteers who were willing to blaze a crazy path with me and it would not exist without every last person who put their hands on it in some way.

We set out to create something chilling with the Texas hill country as the backdrop. Much like horror movies often twist the comfort of suburbia to create something sinister out of the familiar, we saw the opportunity to take the isolation of ranch life and use it against our protagonist. Many of the crew grew up in the hill country but moved to urban centers so the juxtaposition of the two lifestyles was built into the DNA of the story. It was a blast to experiment with ways to build tension and create discomfort in an environment we found so comfortable.

Depression is a condition that affects me and runs in my family. Over the years, it has become clear how dangerous isolation can be in the throes of depression and yet how easy it is to rationalize distancing yourself from loved ones when you are wading in those waters. Issac is a character that is at a crossroads for what kind of life he is going to lead and he has a lot of the deck already stacked against him. We don't always know the pain that someone is going through so it is vitally important that we check up on our friends and family who are typically loners or who have suffered trauma. Depression and grief can turn into hardwiring and manifest through addictions and self destructive behavior after someone is trapped by it. It is a peculiar affliction that convinces our subconscious that there is a comfort in pain, especially if we "deserve" punishment.

Poems from the Dust is the culmination of almost 10 years of off and on work and I am very proud to present, what I consider to be the definitive version of Issac and Lily's story as we shot and developed it.