Courtney Marsh
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Courtney Marsh is an Academy Award nominated filmmaker. Originally from South Florida, Courtney attended UCLA School of Film and Television and has worked extensively in the camera department on numerous commercials and feature films.
She is the creator behind the 2016 Oscar nominated film “CHAU, BEYOND THE LINES”. Chau, a teenager living in a Vietnamese care center for kids disabled by agent orange, struggles with the reality of his dream to one day become a professional artist. Watch the film here.
She has also directed content for companies such as Buzzfeed and has had her films broadcasted on such platforms as Netflix, Al Jazeera English, Dust, and The Atlantic. Her short films have won multiple awards and screened both domestically and internationally, as well as at the United States Senate, Aspen Ideas Festival, and the United Nations in New York City.
Courtney recently finished the feature documentary, "Bottle Conditioned" on which she is a writer, producer, and second unit director. She is in development for her narrative directorial debut.
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Hi everyone. It's Gustavo, the host of the Enabled Disabled podcast. We have a special treat for everybody today, Oscar nominated director Courtney Marsh. She is a brilliant filmmaker. We are going be diving into Chow, her award winning film. And we are also going to explore how she got into filmmaking, some of her creative process. And she's going to tell us a little bit about what she's working on now. A little brief description of me. I am a 45 year old Latin American male. I have dark Brown hair comb to the middle and I am wearing a Navy blue Polo shirt. I am in my living Zoom right now and you can see a little bit of some beige drapes and some blinds. Courtney, welcome to the show.
Well, thanks for having me. This is where I introduce myself or I say what I look like, please.
Yeah.
Alright. So, yeah, I'm Courtney. Pretty much what Gustavo said. Right now I'm wearing a Cinephile T shirt. I'm actually sadly wearing a film hat too, just to go full geek. I'm 35, Caucasian, and dashing looks. Of course, I'm in my office. My twelve and a half year old pit Bull dog is sleeping behind me. And yeah, very beige in my room, I'm realizing very beige. I got a big whiteboard behind me too, with like all my projects at their various stages.
Your hand matches really well with the room color.
That was unconscious coordination. I'm just starting to realize maybe half the things I own are beige.
So I'd love to get started with tell us a little bit about when you were growing up. When did you start to get drawn into filmmaking? How did you explore it? How did you start that process?
Yeah. So I grew up in South Florida in Fort Lauderdale. I was always a really great athlete growing up. I would say that was my thing. I always thought I would, I don't know, be a professional athlete. But I was really, really drawn to books as a young kid. I just loved reading, which eventually led to like writing. But I was really good at sports. That was my identity. So I would kind of like do the sports and then go right in my room every evening and never tell my parents or anything like that. And then it slowly started to evolve. But funny enough, I think what really happened was so silly. But I want to say it was 99. The Matrix came out and someone brought on Christmas got me. It was someone who was just like a family friend randomly got me a VHS. I hope everyone listening to this podcast knows what a VHS is. The VHS of The Matrix. And I remember just like, you know, it's kind of sad when Christmas is over and the holidays are over. It's like all the fun is gone. Whatever. I went up and I watched this movie and it blew my mind.
Just absolutely blew my mind because of the visual style and what it did beyond books. And I was like, I'm pretty sure I've always been a more visual person. I love writing, but this is it. That's what I want to do. Just what it did to my mind. I don't know if people like me, whoever listening. Like, I was like, Are we in the major? So that stayed with me for a long time. And I slowly started moving into, like, when I got into high school, and I started getting into, like, theater, but I never wanted to act. I loved running the spotlights. I loved writing. I loved the technical aspects of it. So I slowly started just kind of falling in love with that. So I'd go run my track race, right? And then my coach was like, Cool down. But I had a theater play that night. I would just run to the parking lot and run across the street and go to theater, run the spotlight, just still sweating. I just loved it. It was just something new to me. It was probably something more difficult. The sports came quite naturally to me, and I was too afraid, though, to really leave the identity.
I mean, when I say I was big in the sport, I was, like, always all county. I was always all state. I was always in the Championship. I did really well in high school especially. But in one of my junior year of high school, I had two friends pass away. Like, two of my best friends pass away in a car accident. And I was just like, I got to stop being scared. I just got to do what I want to do. And I've been eyeing certain schools, always with the intention of doing film. I never told anybody. I was kind of getting in on an athletic, academic scholarship kind of thing. And I just feel like I'm just going to go full thrown out. And I applied to UCLA, and I got in and got into the film school. And then that's when I really realized I knew nothing. I just had this passion for it. Because when I was growing up, we didn't have. I feel like the most artistic film I grew up seeing was, like American Beauty. When I got to film school and people who had come up in the yards or parents, you go to UCLA, people whose parents were in the film industry, they're bringing in gas, barn away, Lars Lantriter, like, things I had just never experienced.
And, yeah, I think that's kind of like the long, short version of kind of how I got into it. I guess it all started with books, and then it just kind of compounded over time.
So there's a lot there that is interesting. So you ran track. That was your main sport. Did you play any team sports?
Well, I grew up playing all the guys sports. All the guys teams. Baseball, soccer, flag football. But then when you reach a certain age and it was really good that I was like, I would get MVP just to give you paint the picture right? There's a lot of identity issues, too, when you go in through that, and then at a certain age, they're like, now you play softball or you play girl soccer. So I did a lot of team sports, and I actually didn't even want to run. It sounds awful, doesn't it? Like, I mean, just running in a circle over and over. But I signed up for cross country to get into train for soccer. I love soccer still. Kind of one of the regrets I have is maybe I just got so good at cross country, I was too nervous to do soccer. I was like, kind of scared to try out. My coach was like, I did so well my first year. They were like, you need to start training for tracks. I was like, all right, I'm good at this. I'll stick with this. So after high school, track really became the thing.
I actually love team sports a lot more. And I also grew up a competitive surfer because my family was really into surfing. So I did all the sports, aside from volleyball and tennis, I feel like I was in the mix.
Interesting. And as you started to get into it's, interesting that you said you started to get into books and reading and writing, but you never really told anybody. I imagine that any books that really grabbed you that you remember that helped with anything or just was it more like an escape? Was it a relaxation? Like, what was it about the books and the writing that you found useful?
Definitely an escape would be one of them. Just adventure and things like that. Obviously. I'm a huge Jane Austin fan. That was big for me. The Awakening, those kind of like, real feminist pieces. I loved those. But to be honest, I remember just being really young, and I liked The Hardy Boys. I liked those things. I just thought, funny enough, James and The Giant Peach. I don't know why, but that was a good book. Underrated. Yeah, I loved it. I'm trying to think, of course, when this is over, I'm going to think of all the books that I loved growing up. Like the Narnia stuff, just the basic stuff when you're a kid. A separate piece was a huge one. I loved English in high school, The Scarlet Letter, all the classics. I love them. Shades, beer. But I think, to be honest, the best trilogy I read in high school was Lord of the Rings. It's like, right when the movies were coming out, I was like, oh, the.
Movies are going to read the books.
And the books are just phenomenal. And the world building was just unreal. And I don't know. Yeah, I think it compounded, but it was an escape and I just thought it was amazing to be able to create a world entirely different from one's own, because in comparison, my world felt so boring to these insane adventures. And right now, though, I got over the past couple of years, I got really into it. I think I'm always kind of sticking the young adult fantasy. I really love that stuff. Young adult. It's just like elevated young adult dystopian and stuff. I just love that stuff.
And as you started to get into theater, did you have different groups of friends that you were moving between, or was theater just something you did because you were interested in at school but your other group of friends was still somewhere else, or did it come from athletics? Like, how did you start to merge those worlds as you were growing up?
Well, I'm really lucky in that. My friend had worked in high school, actually kind of through middle school, but I really solidified in high school. They're still my best friends, really, except they really just like me, didn't stick into anyone. We were just all really good friends, and we had athletes in that group. We had not athletes in that group. It was like a whole mix. But funny enough, I don't know how I got into this youth group, but I was like, through friends, I had two worlds, two theater worlds, and then I had a sports world. So I had my track friends, but a few of those track cross country friends were part of my friend group. And then I had this whole other group that was through our Presbyterian Church that would hold these really intricate, really good musicals. They were completely produced, full on costume, makeup, like live music. I ended up doing all the technical directing for that in the last two years, ran the spotlight, the whole deal. I started out, though, being part of the chorus or being part of the cast, so I didn't really have too much trouble navigating for some reason, they all kind of merged.
The only thing, I think it was more for me. And like my parents, they thought that was all great, but, like, the priority was always sports, because that's what I was great at. Like, if you're winning races, if you're in that like, I was in the newspaper all the time. I was getting interviewed all the time. That versus running a spotlight at a theater. I would say my friend group all kind of merged, luckily, so that part wasn't hard. I think it was more with the family of identity or like, who am I to my parents or something like that? If that answers your question, that does.
So I'm wondering how we're going to get into the UCLA film school experience, which I'm fascinated by. But where do you think the fear came from that you talked about? Right. You're obviously well integrated. Like, you're smart, you're doing great in school. You're this really great athlete. Where do you think the fear came from within yourself? To not try out for soccer, to continue that, or to maybe not apply to film school and do those things? Where did that fear?
I'm sure it's for a lot of people. I think it's the fear of not being good enough. I'm someone who is I have a lot of shame, or I was raised with shame. I think you're scared of really good.
At what I did.
So to not be good at what you do is scary or to be exposed or to be vulnerable. I didn't grow up where vulnerability was promoted. For me, it was tough, especially in sports. Right? It's tough. I think I'm a very vulnerable person. Most of us are, but I'm very sensitive. And these things. I just think I was really scared to be cut, to be cut from the soccer team. I remember in theater, it was my first time. I never accident. I didn't do any of that stuff, but I really wanted to be in this theater play, but to be in the theater play. I was a freshman in high school. Just to be in the chorus, to be in the background, you had to get up on stage and sing a solo by yourself. That and I was, like, in love with one of the guys who was also auditioning. It's like the typical story was Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. That was the play, that I somehow sucked it up, and I did it because I knew I'd make it, even if I was terrible. I think with soccer, I was just, like, intimidated by, like, I have that thing that a lot of people have, and I think it's more prominent with women based off research.
But it's like I have to do all these things to become a professional in order to be qualified to get the job or something like that. And I wasn't as qualified as a lot of the girls trying out for soccer. I think I would have been amazing at it because I was naturally good at that stuff. But I felt like maybe I still have the qualifications. I don't know. I just think it's a fear at the end of the day of not being good enough. I think it's something most of us suffer from, and I think that that's something that to this day, I still have a lot of trouble with. What if I'm not perfect? What if I'm not the best that.
Plagues me, but it also inspires and drives you to keep improving and to keep working at it. When you went to UCLA and you're immersed in this whole Hollywood culture and you're surrounded by all these students who seem to know more about film than you do and have had all this exposure to that world, I'm sure part of you felt out of place, and then part of you was, like, driven by that to get better, to immerse yourself, to fuel your passion. Is that accurate, or did something else happen?
That's a really good question. I think for me, if I'm completely transparent, for me, I was slightly ignorant. I was just like, I got in. I'm doing what I want to do. I can do this. When my friends passed away, I had this thing in my head because they were like, 17 and 18. No drinking. It was just an accident. It was a freak accident. They were driving up to Halloween horror nights and they got into a car crash and they died. And so I had this thing in my head that what if I don't live long, I'm going to die soon too, or something. It's so weird. But something happened. So when I got to film school, I think I was so excited. I got in because there was, like, 15 people who got in. I was like, I deserve to be here. And I was kind of ignorant. I saw people bringing in stuff, but I was never, like, ashamed of my American Beauty clips. I just like, wasn't. I was so naive in a way. It's more in retrospect. I'm like, wow, everyone was like, so much more better than me. However, if I look back at that time, I chose to do documentary because I was so insecure on, like, what am I going to write about?
Like, what is my voice and what is my story? So it's this weird thing, which I don't know if I fully figure it out. I'm, like, trying to figure it out. This moment where I was intimidated and insecure, but at the same time equally naive and confident that I was going to figure it out. And it led to me doing documentary confidently, but, like soccer. I did cross country confidently, but I gave up soccer, so I did documentary confidently, but I gave up the fiction filmmaking, which I think deep down I really wanted to do. Does that make sense?
That does make sense.
I probably needed, like, have a therapist break that doctor.
So you chose documentaries for an interesting reason. Do you feel like you're tied into being a documentary filmmaker at this point? If you wanted to transition to fiction later on, is that something that's not in the cards or is really difficult? Like, how does that work?
So I'm primarily fiction, actually. So I started Chow the documentary when I was in UCLA film school.
Okay.
But we had shot all this stuff, and it was way over my head. Like, I had no idea what I was doing. We just went we shot this movie. Me and my best friend at the time, he was at me. We just like, we're going to go have this experience, and we stumbled upon this thing, which I'm sure we'll get into. But I stayed an extra year into fiction, and after that, I went into being a production assistant, camera. I never did Doc. I only did, wrote and directed my own pieces all the way through. Even now, that's what I'm focusing on. Chow was just kind of like an anomaly in my journey or whatever. It was just this amazing thing that happened. And I took what I knew from narrative really could edit child story in a way that I think it deserved to be edited because it was very much a narrative story as it's beginning, middle and end. It was someone with a goal and overcoming the obstacles to get it. So, no, I think to the industry, it's hard to transition. Like, I got nominated and Doc, and that's very hard to transfer over to narrative or to fiction.
But for me, I don't see a real difference.
Okay.
Story is a story, right?
You would be open to doing both for your career if the right opportunities came along.
Sure. So documentary. So I just produced the documentary, just finished, and then I'm literally in pitches with a series right now, and I'm getting my first narrative feature off the ground. So I'm completely working in the narrative space. The thing is, with Doc, with documentary, you're dealing with people's lives, you're dealing with a lot of moral ethical issues. It's a lot of time not knowing what's going to happen. And while it's sometimes cheaper to make not like it's hard to continue with Doc like to continue making a living. A lot of people would disagree with that. But it depends what the docs I want to make, let me say, and where I'm at in my career, it's hard. It's a lot of caring, it's a lot of effort. It's a lot of Payless hours. It's a lot of, you know, and I think the outcome is worth it. But I think in order to do that, you have to for me, I have to separate it. I have three other dock ideas I would love to do, but my heart is not ready. I have to kind of gear up for something like that because there's so much out of your control.
And you got to rewrite based on what's happening in real life. And the docs they're making on Netflix right now are not talking about those, like the Tinder Swindler, things like that. Those have been written, they're reenacted. This is like what me and my producing partner are interested in following people's lives and seeing where it takes you. And then in retrospect, you have to go, like, edit a story off of that. Anyway, awesome.
So that's interesting. So let's talk about you started filming when you were still in school, which is incredible. How did that opportunity come about?
So when I decided.
When I wanted.
To do documentary, see if it take us to the water. When I wanted to do documentary, I had a lot of support. I was really enthusiastic. Imagine doing sports whole life. College sports is so demanding. So I ended up quitting. I got into film school and quitting with the blessing of my coach. Really good grades, got into film school and I was like, I'm going to finally do what I've wanted to do for ten years. This is all I want to do. So I got really into it. I met my really good friends. We in film school, we were like inseparable and we would just film a bunch of stuff, whatever. And basically I had to do a thesis project and I was like kind of an overachiever and I was like, oh, I'll do it my first year and not my second year. And I was talking to him and he's like, well he was visiting me and he said I've always wanted to go back and why don't we do a dock over there? So I was like, all right. I was like, yeah, let's do it. There's nothing we can't do. So he's like, maybe we could do a Verita dock and ask what if we did this?
He said, well there would be street kids. I was like, yeah, you know, you have to like 2000. I don't even know what it was 2006. And we're like, yeah, let's do this. So we put together this pitch deck. That was great. He was really doing Photoshop. I like wrote the story, this whole thing. We got funding from the school. We did donation parties. Like people gave us money, independent people donated, donated miles. People are just like, we bought a camera like this awesome camera, like a mini TV, but it had its own lens back focus which is so awesome. Got sound. And we just went to Vietnam without a plan. We just went there. It was awesome, but we had support from the beginning. It was really like a dream come true. It was like just a really amazing thing. That's kind of how it came about and then how we found.
I don't know if you want me.
To go to that next, but how we got into this actual topic and found Chow, it's like a completely different thing.
Yeah, please. How did that happen?
So we were over there and we had our tickets for like two months or something. We were going to be there for a minute. We were staying in it's very small and tell that his parents friends owned and because you have to go through like when you go shoot in Vietnam, by the way, I stand out. I'm like the whitest human in the world. I am Irish as you can get. I'm taller than a lot of the people there. I just stand out. I blonde hair, I'm so American, it's gross. And you have to go and talk to government officials. Can I sell mirror? So me and my friend are going, you catch people's attention. This TV producer came to our hotel. It's like, listen, I get you guys when I do the stock on street kids and blah, blah, blah. But let me take you to this hospital and show you what you should really do. Your documentary on this guy. We're like, all right, so we go with him to the back building in a maternity hospital in the middle of Saikon or Ho Chi Minh or whatever your preference. And it is for kids who have been abandoned is the wrong word.
But orphaned, maybe, or given up by the birth parents because of them. They either have a disability or they have a deformity or something like that due to dioxide in the bloodstream, which is the main chemical toxin, and Agent Orange, which is the chemical that the US sprayed during the Vietnam War to kill vegetation overnight and to expose the Northern Vietnamese who they were fighting against, who were practicing guerrilla warfare and hiding in the trees. So I go back up there. You have to remember, I traveled, but I wasn't the most worldly. And you go and you go into that camp and you see some things that you've never seen before, like that almost don't maybe register a little bit because I'm 20 years old, and I didn't know what Asian Orange was. I had no idea. So we met with the nurses or the head nurse, and we took a tour. Kind of weird. You walk down the hallway, which I'm sure you've seen the photographers and stuff. You can do that. I didn't take photos like that. But you're kind of like, Where am I? We went wrong where we had to really talk about this.
Like, what are we going to do something you're like? I was like, I think we need to explore this. So I look it up. I read about what age into Oranges. I realize that it's connected to my homeland, and I'm like, then become very interested in this to an extent. I didn't know I could be because it affected me directly in a way or indirectly, but it affected me and my heritage. So I was like, let's go explore it. But no cameras. You can't. Let's just go volunteer. Let's just go volunteer and see what it's all about. So we did. We volunteered there for two weeks. That was awesome. And I don't speak Vietnamese, by the way. I thought I could go to Vietnam and shoot a feature documentary if it's short. But I thought I could shoot a feature documentary in a language that I did not know as my first film. So that just gives you an idea of the athletic confidence I was going into film with. Yeah, that's exactly what it is. So anyway, we volunteered there for two weeks, and we kind of got to know the kids. And my friend got his cousin to come in and translate for me, and she would translate what the kids are saying, and we got to know these kids.
And then we kind of like, took a minute we were like, do we want to focus on this as our Doc? And we asked them, Would you cool if we film your lives? And they were like, yeah, so we did. Yeah. That's how it started.
That's an incredible story. When you were growing up, did you have any friends, any classmates or any people at UCLA that had a disability? Have you ever been exposed to or seen it in your life?
No, not really. In all honesty, I think it probably affected me that much more, too, because I wasn't ever exposed. No one in my family has a disability or no, not really. And so I would say with this, no, I didn't. I'm just taking that in, being Lagged. I think it probably impacted me, too, in a different way. But what I kind of also because then you have to ask yourself, who am I to make this talk? Who am I? I here I am saying my biggest problem was being a great athlete, and I was too scared to leave. It's really not a problem. It's like I had taken for granted a lot of things, but we would play soccer every afternoon with these kids. And what I also loved, though, and I think where I could really where there was also, like, no boundary, though, I didn't say, oh, these are kids with disabilities. They didn't think like that, but they never acted like that. They would trip me in soccer. There was no awareness in that level, or at least there wasn't any. Like they never used it as something. It was always like this was the way it was, and that was their world.
So it was interesting in that way. And when I look back on it, but I don't know, I felt like very at home and I kind of digressed.
But yeah, no, I think that's a really remarkable point because I was going to go in a different direction. It's not like, who are you? I think it's fascinating that you are exposed to this part of the world that I think a lot of people who see that, who see your film, I've read some of the reviews there's. Shocking, right? If you've never seen somebody with the disability and here they are in this camp, orphaned, and you weren't, I think a lot of people would have said, I don't want to do this. This is too uncomfortable. Instead, you took it and said, we're going to go volunteer. We're going to go get to know these kids. We're going to ask permission. We're going to explore this. So you embraced it and you saw them as people. Yeah, that's incredible. I think not a lot of people would have done that.
That's interesting. You say that because sometimes with the film, I would get people to be like, I can't watch it. It's too much for me. It's like, well, it's life. Like no one's feeling sorry. But I was like, don't pin me. That's like the really big interesting thing. And I think that's, like, to me, that's the one thing that would irritate me. I wouldn't care if people gave me a bad review, whatever. But if people were like, I can't watch it. They're just kids. They don't know any different. It's not a comparison game. And I think that leads to a way larger issue that obviously I'm probably not like, the person to be the spokesman on. But I have to say it led me into a world, too, of a whole different type of empathy to the struggles that I've never been aware of. Like, basic stuff. When we went back and we're filming with Chow, you realize how many sidewalks don't have ramps. Like, it's unreal. And then you start to look at it in America and you think, oh, it's normal in Vietnam. America is like the worst. It's really maybe not the worst, but you just start to have a whole different reality, though, when you started to spend an immense amount of time for someone like me who would take it for granted or something like that.
I'm traveling with Chow. It's like you really realize the gaps and things. And so anyway, it gave me a whole different perspective on that. And that was probably for me, one of the biggest things to come from it was it opened up a world I had never needed to really know. So anyway, yeah, but my only thing that irritates me, a lot of people close to me, like, I'm sorry, I can't watch it. It's like, all right, okay, no worries. One day, maybe.
That'S an unfortunate thing that we just. I hope that changes one day, but I would love to talk to those people, too, and just say, look, life can be awkward and difficult, and it's just part of this unbelievably rich experience that we can have and just get over that initial awkwardness and learn to see them as human beings. A whole new point of view and perspective is going to open up for you. It's going to be a good thing, right? Just to get over that initial awkwardness of seeing someone who's different than you. That's all.
Yeah, 100%. And the thing is, too, I think that's what's holding progress in some way back. It's like that mentality there is the part of the problem. And a lot of people will be like, well, because it's young kids, and I'm like, but they are okay. So anyway, they don't have to spend too much time on that. But I hear you in the sense of, like, that's part of the problem.
Yeah. And I think the way you captured their humanity and Chow's humanity was remarkable. Like, even just for the opening of the movie is like, him there, like, putting the blanket on the kid there, and you can see he's helpful. He's part of they just feel it's a family. One thing that really caught my attention was this dynamic there with the nurses? Like, they're doing a difficult work in the sense that they're teachers, they're caretakers. They're almost in some ways substituting as parents, but you can see that they don't want to get too emotionally involved, and yet they do. It's not an easy position to be in. Can you tell us a little bit more of that back story and what you noticed when you were filming? Like, what was what were they like off camera? And what was the dynamic between them? Like with Chow, for example? They're telling him, we're going to support you if you get educated right, you should finish high school. Don't become an artist. A lot of parents here in the US tell their kids that. It's like they're taking on that role of parent and trying to do what's best for them and fighting with them in that way.
And yet they gave up on him in a sense, too.
I think when I was there, I was like 20. I felt differently about it because we were so close with the kids that I would get some of that. I was really close with one of the nurses. We cried when I left. I was so and she was like, lobbing, but strict, too. She's in the film. I'm trying to think of where exactly she is. But anyway, I think here's the thing. One. They're trying to create an image of the place, and they have to be careful with who they let in, to be honest, that we got access like we did as mind blowing. In retrospect, they ended up kicking us out. They're like, yeah, you got enough. You need to go. The nurses, though, I think deep down they really care for the kids because I was a nurse there for some time, and I was in their shoes, and I get it. I also teach filmmaking part time through a wonderful program. But I get it. I get you can always be the mom, you can always be this. You can't always have the love. It's just really so stressful. They're understaffed. But imagine you're the nurse, and, you know, first of all, like Vietnam at the time, they don't like, look at art like me do.
They don't have Hollywood. It's a bit different. So imagine you are dealing every day with kids who have a disability. In Chow's case, he lacks muscles in his arms to paint. And this kid is telling you, I'm not going to do all the other stuff. I'm going to be an artist. And they're like, it's hard for an able bodied person to be an artist. And then it's only 1% of those. You're out of your head. I think they're saying it so you're like, we don't want you on the streets. We do not want you on the street. We want you to have a life. They teach them computers. That was like the thing. And that worked out for a lot of the kids. Not a lot, but a few of them. And Chow is just like, no one's going to tell me what I'm doing. So can you imagine how frustrating that is with a 14 year old teenager telling you you don't know what you're talking about? Like, screw you, and you're an adult being like, I'm struggling to pay my rent in a job that is very taxing, it's very difficult, and everything's political, and they see the way people come in and look at these kids every day.
They're the other they're not people, right? Like, that's the whole thing. So I think I get where the nurses are coming from, and to be honest, I think that their intentions are in the right place. What if they told every kid in there, yeah, you can do whatever you want. It doesn't matter where you are to any kid. It's not always true. And these kids don't have parents. They don't have family. I mean, Charles parents, but no money. It's not like Elon Musk's kid who can probably do whatever he or she wants to do. I actually don't even know the gender of their child, but it's just determined. And I get it. But it took me a minute because I was at the mindset like, Chow, you can do whatever you want. Me. I'm like, screw him, you know? No, I'm 35 now, and I struggle. And I'm like, Chow is right now living like his best life. And I'm just like, he did it. And I think, like, for him to know what really was the success, he just never looked at how he was different. He never looked at what he didn't have.
He always looked at what he had, and it carried him. And he went through his hard times, and he's close with one or two of the nurses still so deep down, they love the kids.
It came across this very complex relationship and dynamic that's going on there. And thank you. That was a great answer. Why do those tourists come in every day like that? What is that about?
Well, there's two different things. We show two different things in the dock. There's two different instances of photographers. So the first one, you donate, you straight up donate to this house, and they like, take you down the hallway and show you the roofs. It's like, kind of Zoom a bit. It's weird. The second one is that they have doctors and students who are, like, actively coming in, like, orthopedic surgeons or students studying to be orthopedic surgeons. There's a photo where they're taking a photo of the kids hands. Those are doctors. So they are going to go study that and see if there's, like, you know, what would be the orthopedic solution here, things like that. So the hard part is, yeah, a lot of foreigners come in, you donate, and you can just like, that was like a moment right. Where you're just catching these people, like, awkwardly taking photos of just like a kid. But I think that that's, again, a really honest and like that's unfortunately part of humanity, too. You know, it's the gawking. It's the other.
Yeah. They're doing it to raise money, but it's hard because I was born with multiple physical disabilities. I've been in that other place many times. And it was one thing that really I could relate to that was not I think most people probably wouldn't is when Chow and one of his friends were there and there was a little girl with her, he was scaring her, and he was laughing about it like she's scared of me. Right. Like, we used to do that where me and my friends, when there were kids who were being mean or disrespectful, we made up a story that I have one arm that we were camping and I ate my arm. We were all hungry and cut off my arm and we ate. It so amazing. And that we were going to go and eat their arm, too. And we'd chase them away and they'd run away. Mommy, Mommy, that kid ate his arm. And we would just be laughing the whole time. So I could relate to that moment. It's probably not the healthiest thing, but it's a moment of empower.
I was going to say, though, it's about taking back power in a way. Obviously, this is an intangible thing, but when someone does that, I think it is in a way to one, be lighter about it. But also. Yeah, take back the power. That, to me, has to be my favorite part of the movie. That happened multiple times, too. And think about it as you were saying. It's like people stare. It's weird. We took child to the MoMA in New York, right? Yes, the Museum of Art. And people stare and it's upsetting. I get so mad. It lights a fire in me. But I think there's two things. One, you really just don't care about it. Or two, you use it in some way and maybe it is healthy. I don't really know. I think those kids deserve what they got. I think it's amazing. I would do it. I would be like I would have done the same thing.
When Chow went home, he fought with the nurses and he went home to the camp. And you're filming him there alone in the house. Nobody there to welcome him. He's basically living a solitary life, like in this home. That must have been really difficult as a filmmaker to experience that with him.
Yeah. He was kind of on the tail end of a few things. So I wouldn't bear honestly, like, through the hardest parts.
But.
I think I think, to be honest, you don't know how it's all going to end. Is this where it ends, that you're going to be home alone and sad and then you as a documentary not to make it about me, but it very much becomes about you in the sense of you feel responsibility for the person. So for me, Luckily, I kind of came on to the end of that where I kind of knew there was this way out. So it was easier for him, I think, to, like talk about it a bit more and reminisce. So, yeah, but he had we actually skipped because I wasn't there to film it. But right after, there was a part where he actually left his home and went to a Buddhist temple that wasn't there for that. That was when he picked up from loneliness and kind of like got deep with himself. And then we got that the part after. But it was hard because this was like before smartphones. Like, we weren't like he never really had a phone. Like we couldn't, like communicate. We would lose communication. Like, it was just that was the scary part.
Like where is he? Like what's he doing? Because no one seems to care about him. And Meanwhile, I'm going through my twenties, like just emotional roller coaster identity crisis, which now that I've said that so many times, I feel like that's just my life. But I think, yeah, it was just one thing. I just never felt sorry for a child. He has this thing, whether that's me or that's him, I always kind of knew he'd be okay. But it was those moments of silence where you're just kind of like what's happening and how is the story going to end? So I would say, like that, yeah, there were moments where I was concerned, but deep down I knew he'd be okay in some way. I learned about that kind of like really more suicidal stuff later down the line because I wasn't there really for that. He kind of talks about that in past tense while interviewing.
That would have been obviously you were already going above and beyond with that would have been incredibly interesting part of the film if you had been able to capture him at the Buddhist temple just to see how did those monks react to him, accept him, let him in. What did that look like? And what did that process of building his self awareness and really going inward, what was that like? But it's a cool part. It's a cool tidbit that you had it. But that would have been really interesting.
Yeah. I mean, in retrospect, there was so much more I wish I would have gotten. I was like working full time and trying to make others stuck and not knowing all over the place. But from what I understand, when he went there, he had a place to stay. He had food, and he was around people who cared about him. It feels like a community. And from what I understand, I'm not sure if Chow really ever felt like the other, but I think there he felt very. It was all normal. He felt in a safe place. I think it was more at home in the middle of the country. You can't use a wheelchair. You can't go anywhere. He can't drive going to his house. He went through such a narrow dirt road with, like, trees, just, like, hitting the cab. He was so isolated. I think at least at the temple, there was more communication and more support in some way.
Yeah. Community. I think part of the film. I think everybody should watch this movie. I think it was brilliant. But his courage to go out into the city and try to get a job and not knowing anybody, using public washrooms to clean themselves to do.
And the one we feature in the movie is a nice one. It's a nice one. Imagine, like, the stuff I wasn't there for that. I've only heard about what that is. Like.
The courage and the resilience that he showed is remarkable for any human being, period. Like, I don't know that maybe it's been too long since I've been in my 20s, but I don't think I would have had that kind of courage and resolve to put myself through that much. He's just like a singularly remarkable human being. And you did a great job with what you captured when there was a shot that was taken when that interior design firm let him in where he was finishing a painting, and I think the head of the firm let him live there. Let him work.
Yeah, he lived on the couch, right.
You could see that he's taking a picture of him finishing the painting, and it was almost like a proud dad moment, or you saw pride in him that Chow was doing this. It was a really remarkable shot, probably unintended, but it really captured, I think, an interesting dynamic between that.
Absolutely. Yeah. That guy was really wonderful, and he let us film in there a lot. But yeah, Chow lived in there. He lived on the couch. The thing is a child, too. There's no shame. This is what I need to do to get to the next thing. And I deserve this. That's like, what I could even learn from him. But, yeah, he made his own luck. That place. It was really well kept. The women would, like, come and glean it, and he was, like, friends with them, and they'd bring him food and yeah, it was a proud dad moment, for sure. It was cool. It was great. And that guy was just doing it actually out of, like, his goodness. He's like, I have no reason not to let him hang here and do his paintings and whatnot. And it ended up being this really wonderful thing to let Karacho, because we finished the movie while he was there. And then after the nomination, he started selling his paintings. People saw the movie, and they're like, well, we'll buy and they would go for nothing. And now they're, like, more expensive, obviously, because he can charge that much.
But yeah, it's nice how it all timed out.
It did. He became a really good painter. That vocational school was also there were some great moments in there, too, where his ability to adapt and to think outside the box, within his own constraints is something that we should all be learning from because he had been drawing with his hands this whole time. And obviously there were some constraints there when he went to the vocational school, like, something clicked in his mind where he was like, you know what?
He got jealous of the girl.
He got jealous as to the girl and said, I'm going to be special.
Thank you. He was straight up mad. She was getting more attention than him. He was literally like this bitch. Which is so wonderful, though, because, I mean, like, who hasn't been like this guy? He was like, watch what I'm going to do. And whatever he did, it. He made it happen. So, yeah, definitely outside of the box, for sure.
I think there's so many different ways to interpret that film. Is there a takeaway that you would like people to have that maybe they're missing when they see it?
I don't know if I've actually ever even been asked that question. I think no matter what, I hope by the end of the movie you see Chow as just who he is. I think when we were introduced, most people, like myself back in 2006, can be. It's very easy. We've been talking through this podcast to do the other thing. I'm different to this person because language, culture, disability, whatever, can be all these things. And I would hope by the end that you steech out for who he is. His flaws, his personality, like, every the good and the bad, right? He's jealous. He cheated. He's a human being. Another thing is, I hate sounding cliche in this, but, like, the quality is extremely important. It's something that a lot of us, I think, think in our heads we are. But there's so much prejudice and so many aspects of things, myself included. Right. But I remember when I went into making this movie when I would Google search Agent Orange, all the kids in that camp would come up with image search, but they were all shot, high angles, buried victim. And you would think these kids are in perpetual pain.
So for me, it was just such a different experience I had that I would hope by the end that any of that stuff would be wiped away, because a big thing, for example, is like, just to like, really? I hope I'm not being ignorant in any of this, but there was this thing where Chow cheats. People are like, we shouldn't put that in because it's not a good thing for the main character. He's human. We can't make this painting because, again, you're putting them on an inhuman pedestal or whatever you want to call it. So for me, it's always been about the honest humanity of it. And I really hope that if there were prejudice in the beginning, it would kind of wipe away. But to be honest, no, maybe you Google Agent Orange if you don't know about it or see what you can do to help. Gorge just become slightly more interested. But I think I just really made the movie for Chow and I just tried to be as honest as I could about it. And then everything that came after was just a dream because I didn't see that coming. We tried to get people we submitted to the Oscars.
We for walled it. It's called. We put it in the theaters. We had a distributor at the time. He was like, we think this guy nominated. That even crossed our mind. We for walled it. My parents hadn't even seen it. They go see it in this theater. All you do is run it in a theater for a weekend and have an ad in the newspaper. So we qualified. We dropped off like 100 DVDs to the Academy. We are trying to get people to come on as PR. That's what you do. Because all these other docs you're competing against have won all these awards, major awards, and they got to qualify for free. No one would accept us. And I was like, well, no one. Either it's in a different language or it's this or whatever. There was always a reason. Then we got short listed and then, like, everyone wanted to rep us. And so, like, when you had the PR people telling you, no, no, no. You're thinking myself, well, never not going to ever work. So it kind of went somewhere we didn't expect. But no, I just think just seeing Child for who he is and also understanding, like, he's not a perfect person, but what makes him special in his own way is his insane tenacity.
And just like, I don't feel bad for myself. And if you do opt to take advantage of it, a lot of it is he's like, oh, these people are interested that she can beat with her feet. Watch this shit. I'm going to totally. I'm about to. I admire that. I admire that. There was never like a question. For better or worse, Child knows this. I tell him he's not the easiest person all the time. Like, he'll always find a way. Like, if you tell him no, he'll find a way. It's just who he is. So, yeah. Anyway, I think it's just more that it does justice to him. And answer question that if there was prejudice at the top of the film, that it's gone by the end of the film.
I think for me, you succeeded. You showed their humanity at scene of them playing soccer was awesome. I'm so happy you put that in there.
They're good players.
Too.
Like, I'm in that we would just play all the time, and there were fights. They're kids.
Yeah, that's exactly what you showed. They're human beings. They're kids just like everybody else.
Yeah.
I know we have to wrap up soon, but are you good? What was that like to be nominated for an Oscar in your first film?
Well, it was my first Dock. I had done a lot of so I've done, like, narrative shorts, and film is not the best of the world is an interesting place. So I had gotten denied from so even with Chow had gotten denied from the day I got nominated, I got denied from the festival. So I had done a few films. They had their highs and lows. Then I finished Chow. We got into a few festivals where we found, like, our distributor, I should say, our sales company. And when we got nominated, it just felt like finally it just felt like the biggest win, because for me, it didn't change anything. I'm still me. It didn't do anything to me except maybe maybe have a little bit more confidence or you can go to all that mental stuff, but it just kind of showed people that my film was important, which was really nice, and that child story was important. And really what it did for him was so awesome, but it was really fun. It was cool. But in Hollywood, Oscars come around every year. And the way I look at the Oscars is it was a real cool thing to be nominated.
It's very political. The minute we got nominated, it's like, who are you going to shake hands with? What events do you pay to go to? Who are you hiring as your PR? It's like running for President. And I don't really want to do that because imagine you have three films that have been perpetually ignored or you don't get into the festivals you want. Now you're in the Oscars. And my PR person said to me, to me, she goes, you know, listen, the truth is, you're probably not going to win. This song was done by HBO. She's won the Oscar before. This other film is like Olivia Wire and Seam Titus The Producers or whatever. We're probably not going to win. And I was like, okay, she's like, we have this couple or this team that we represented, and they kind of knew the same thing, and they just had a good time. And I was like, they won't just have a good time because I was stressing out. You start getting obsessed with Gold Derby and Where the Ring Kings Are, and it's just you lose everything. I just didn't want to end up at the Oscars being like, I lost, which, by the way, you won if you got the nomination, that's never going to go away from your name.
I didn't want to be there and be like, oh, bummer. And I'm at the Oscars, and I'm hating life. I was like, no, let's go to all the events. We'll talk, we'll be honest, we'll drink, we'll have a great time. And we did that. And it was really fun. And you get to meet some people and buy some people drinks. So you never thought you'd get to meet or whatever. Not this early, at least. And it was a lot of fun. And I got very immersed in the world of people who are fighting for the clean up of Agent Orange, definitely, like into disability rights and things like that. So it led into all these things. It made me important for this moment in time. And I think what we did with that moment in time was good in the film world, though. For the minute you get nominated, they're like, what's next? And if you don't have something that's next, it's trouble. So it was two very different experiences, but overall, it was crazy.
That's a good I'm glad that you stayed grounded and that you enjoyed the moment and got what you needed to get out of it because like I said, that Oscar nomination is with you forever. It sticks with your name, and it's a good thing to have by your name.
Yeah. So it was a lot of fun and it was good and it's good for Chow. And I really like, I think did the most for him. He's the one who's really taken advantage of this all. And he lives in the US now and he's chilling.
I did. So he's in the US now. Interesting.
He's in the US now. He somehow lives in Texas with friends and he travels a lot. He got to do a lot. Like, he went skiing for the first time and there are some really wild stuff. He got to do snorkeling and scuba dive. I mean, the guy has done everything. I think people just saw him and were like, yeah, we want to host you. And he just started going places and meeting people and being really wonderful. He visited me in La, so I saw him and yeah, it's really cool.
That's amazing. He's speaking English now.
Wow. A lot better. I'm the one who needs to be, like speaking Vietnamese. I can still just order food and that's about it. So I could survive. Yeah, he's doing good.
So how do you think, like, moving in, moving forward with your career as a filmmaker? How do you think the experience of Chow changed you? Are you looking did it help maybe diversify how you think of characters, how you get into different perspectives of different human beings, or did you kind of put that aside and say as somebody creating fiction, it didn't have much of an impact? They're two separate things.
I think they're very much similar. But I just produced the Doc that I'm one of the writers on. So it's me and the director wrote it because now you craft the story you're a writer, so this helped me a lot with that because this took a lot of as a similar thing with Child, where the information was backdrop, but the human stories are front and center and learning how to be honest about characters without infringing on their Privacy and molding us a human story that people can relate to on a universal level. So I think that really helps. When it comes to fiction, I think that they probably subconsciously intertwined, but I never think actively. I mean, for me, every move you make is just you're getting a step closer to becoming a better storyteller. Documentary has different parameters, but I think really to what Chow taught me was just being really honest. That thing I brought up about, we shouldn't show him cheating. You have to show him cheating in the dock. They can't just be these perfect people because that's not how people are. So again, though, it's always tugs in a moral line because we just released the stock, we showed it people, and they're like, that's a pretty intimate scene.
Can we have it removed? And it's like, you have to explain why it's so important that it's in there. Chow was like, no, that's what happened. Like, I was going to cheat. He's like, yeah, I didn't like that girl. That's the difference with him. So for me, I think that's just really about how you honor your subjects, but you are able to craft the story and communicate that to your audience.
Good answer. Can you tell us anything about your current projects that you like the audience to know?
Yeah, I can say some stuff. Well, I'm shopping the series right now. It's fiction that's getting us through, going through the pitching process right now, but I'm really hoping it's looking good, but I can't say too much there. And, yeah, getting a first narrative feature off the ground. But what I'll focus on is the film we just finished, which is I didn't direct it, but I produced it. I co wrote produced it. And it's not social justice, it's not anything. It's different because it deals with the it's called bottle condition. It's just making its way to the festival circuit. We literally finished it like two weeks ago, a week ago. Just had our first investor screening and stuff like that. But it's essentially about the oldest type of beer in the world is called or. One of the oldest is called Lambeck. It's a completely naturally fermented heavy culture in Belgium. It's this very special beer that takes years and years and years to make. It's like an art form. The brewers not like regular beer where it's in a lab and blood grown yeast and it's in these big tanks. This is like aged in wine barrels and blended, and it's in champagne bottles and it's very fancy.
And we follow. It almost went into extinction after World War Two. Coca Cola kind of came in and just standardized taste and made everything sweet. This is not a sweet beer. And we follow three of the producers who survived after World War II. Almost everyone shut down because their beers right now are the most sought after beers in the world. They have, through the crap beer revolution, have had this, like, people pilgrimage there. It's like wild. It's insane, actually. And if you have the age for years, you can keep bottles from the 80s like wine. They go for thousands of dollars now. So we follow two families and then one new guy. And the thing is, with the families, the dads or the older people have gone through the real hard times. They were there with ship, with no one wanted their beers. They were struggling to survive. And now the younger generation, who are now, like in their thirty s, forty s, fifty s even, they're trying to meet the demand and they want to try new things. But the older guys are like, screw these new beer guys who want to know it's done like this.
So it's about the generational shift of like, how do you move something with so much, like, conviction and so much art and intention? And how do you shift it into the real world without losing tradition, without losing the heart of it, without losing the spirit of this very special thing that went through a lot? And so history and the making of is more of the backdrop. And then we follow these three producers with three very different stories. But, yeah, we're very proud of it. And I really love it. I think it actually has a lot of Chow vibes in it, in the sense of it's a movie about beer. But by the end, you'll maybe have that emotional, I'm hoping you have that teary eyed kind of feel or like it gets you, because I think in Dock, what really at least intrigues me is personal revelation to see someone grow through things like Chow does. Like in the end, where he makes this revelation about the number three or his life. It's very similar in this film. I'm very excited. So bottle conditions will be announcing where that's premiering and all that stuff. So that's the one I'll focus on plugging.
Can't wait to see it. It sounds like an amazing story and it changes the audience, but it changes you, too, right. As a writer, as a filmmaker, as a human being, which is, I think, part of, I would imagine, as a creator, that's part of what keeps you coming back for more as well.
Yeah, it's a very strange addiction. I was just asking my producing partner because this was a really hard one in that again, we went over to another country and luckily he speaks French and he understands the language for one of our producers to speak French. The other is Spanish. And I asked him, was it worth it? Because we went through a lot getting this made. We had investors and it's very different. Chow was made on my own money and some donations and stuff because we went through so much. And he's like, yeah, it is worth it. And that's the sad thing. Often times it is. But the pain to get there, like, right now, just getting this new movie off the ground, you need X amount of money to do it. And it's hard to find people who want to get into film sometimes because especially make something with, like, at least have the integrity. Because sometimes when you just go to a studio, you become an employee and it's important to be able to hold on to your own final cut and things like that. So, yeah, it's always hard, but I keep coming back.
I think I've always known from a young age that this was my purpose, maybe as silly or arrogant or self righteous, if that sounds without it, I feel like I'm empty. It's been a minute since I directed something and it's really weighing on me. So there's nothing else I don't think I could do. I think it's always worth it. It's just a pain in the ass. I wish people are like, something about, like, oh, filmmaking and money. I'm like, there are easier ways to make money. You don't have to make a film, like, whatever, but you got to really love it. Luckily, I do.
Yeah, I agree with that. And even when you have all the money and you have the I think a lot of people don't realize that. Just sit and look at the credits on the next blockbuster movie. You watch and realize there's hundreds, sometimes thousands of people working in the background to make this two hour film happen.
Well, that's what's so unfortunate, too. Right now with the Academy, they're not televising. They don't even televise the shorts anymore, but they don't televise so many things. Like, we're supposed to be throw this out there because I am pissed about it. It's like the Academy Awards is supposed to be a time where we celebrate filmmaking, celebrate the art and the craft of it, and you're cutting out those people and the credits. I don't even think we have enough awards for the jobs that are done, but to cut out sound or editing or these things that these are the people who, like their job can be ankle aside from the paycheck sometimes if the paycheck is good and they, like, make a movie come together. So, yeah, exactly. Anyway, I won't go off on that ramp, but it's unfortunate sometimes our industry is going through like a reckoning and a kind of a very weird time and streamers have changed everything. And Dock is changing a lot. Dock is changing so much. It's so crazy. So I'm happy that Chow kind of came out when it did. And we'll see how bottle condition goes in this new market because it's not the Tinder swimmer.
But no, he ate all the Tinder swimmer. I'm just saying it's the different kind of dock.
Yeah. I did not see the Tinder swindler, nor do I have an interest in it.
Yeah. I mean, it's a bunch of women who get swindled by this dude, and they have, like, Netflix is doing this thing right now where it's all these scammer things. So, like, if bad being in or some crypto thing, I don't know. It's just interesting. Happy stories are held. Happy endings are hard to sell right now. They really are. Like, that's a fact. It's not just my opinion.
Interesting. I guess it goes in cycles, too, because the 1970s, so many great movies came out in the Seventies that did not have happy endings. And that's what people were drawn to at the time. So I get it. But even though the ending for Chow, I guess you could say it was happy, but it wasn't typical happy. I wouldn't describe it. Right. It was hopeful. It was, wow, look at what this amazing person has been through and what it took him to get here. But it wasn't. I wouldn't describe it as a typical happy ending.
Maybe that's not the right word. Or I guess what I'm trying to say is it feels right now like docs are kind of being homogenized to a specific, like paint by numbers. And it's kind of, in my opinion, taking away some of the veritase stuff that I love in Dock. And also to talk about what you're saying about midnight movies and 70s, those are also very artistic, taking a lot of risks and covering things that have been copied a lot now. But also, like, they were done in such a way with certain artistic creative expression that I think we're not seeing as much anymore because the film industry. And I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I'm not, like, over your Hayden, but it's such a business now that it's very hard sometimes to find the early, like, cobalt coming out, the Scorsese, even early Spielberg, like, all those things. It's very rare, I think, to find, like, the Jennifer Kent or the Celine Skyamas or the Robert Eggers. It's like it's a smaller world right now in that stuff. So just with Doc, I think specifically it's become a very much more cookie cutter formulaic thing because docs are in right now.
Docs are like, where it's at, right.
It's almost like that reality TV craze has kind of shifted into docks, right?
100%. That's how I feel when I watch docs. They're not the docs like I've fallen in love with. Or like the Gray gardens and the maze, all these things that set the tone for that's. Not the Doc I learned in school. And I believe there is room for every kind of film. My favorite thing when I've had a tough day, I will go on internal, Nottinghill for the hundred million time. There's room for everything. Not everything needs to be like a Von Trier film or a Michael Hanukkah film or some deep dive into the psyche. But I just see it bending so much in one way. Like, it's very hard sometimes to, like, I'll Scroll through Netflix for, like, an hour, not find anything, and I can just watch Friends again. I think we're just at that stage, but I think everything does move in cycles. And so I'm very excited to see where it goes because, okay, so we're hitting this peak now, but maybe it's going to go back to we'll go through an artistic thing, and then we'll ask that'll come too much and we'll go back. It all goes in its waves.
And you just got to be flexible, right? Like, what is high commitment, low attachment.
Yeah. But it will be interesting to see and I do hope and there are some people I want to introduce you to, but I do hope that at the very least, Hollywood can take or the streaming services, whoever they are, can try to make more room for some risk taking, some intelligent risk taking, and we get more diversity of stories, more diversities of characters. When I growing up, I never saw anybody on screen that I can remember that wasn't a villain or somebody we were supposed to feel sorry for, who had a disability.
That should change.
And there's tons of examples of that. And there's so many interesting stories we can create around that. We just need to, again, get out of that comfort zone. Get out of that formula. I love Marvel movies, but I'm tired of them.
Yeah, they definitely milk them really a lot.
No, I would just like to see more room for more creative expression.
I agree. And I think off what you said, I'm all about the diversity and different storytelling. Sometimes I wanted to have integrity and not just be, like, slapped on there, like, let's just throw this person in here because it hits our quota or whatever. That's fine, too. But it would be nice to see some, like, really, I don't know, real stories, maybe. And also, if you're listening, you're like, there's plenty of them out there, whoever is listening. And you can totally feel free to let me know via any social media platform you find me on. Tell me a movie I should watch, because I also kind of become, like, salty and jaded, and I'm just like, I can't anymore even deal with this.
Whatever.
So 35 and I'm already salty. I was below the line so long in the film industry, like, as a camera assistant, I've just been through too much where I'm just like, whatever. I don't want to watch it.
You're salty because you care and because you want to see something better. It's not like you're jaded where you're like, I'm done with this. It's over. Like, you're salty because you care about it.
I just couldn't use more movies that I really love or more movies that I really gravitate to, or movies that are maybe taken a little are done a little bit more seriously than just trying to please everybody. I'm a huge fan of, like, Jennifer Kent or Jonathan Glazer. I'm really excited to see their next movies. They're definitely that they're out there. They just always take 800 years to make a movie. So it'd be nice to have a few more of those in the mix so I can see at least one movie a year. I'm totally into. Did you see any movies recently that you really liked or any of the Oscar movies or anything like that?
I saw a couple of the Oscar movies, and I'm just better not to mention them because I wasn't really about them. Yeah, I didn't like them. No. The answer is no. So I haven't taken enough time recently. I've just been busy. I do have some things, like, I love the Dune series. I read all the books.
Oh, yeah. Dune is also. I should have mentioned Dune. I mean, Dune is. But I read that late way, like in my late twenty? S. Me too. Okay. Yeah. It was given to me by a film person who helped me in one of my movies. Like, you got to redo. I was like, all right, yeah, it's unreal.
So I'm looking forward to watching that. I've heard good things.
I like Denny Ville New, who's the director. I don't know. The scale is amazing. And by the way, have you ever heard of Alejandro Jodorovski Dune the documentary?
I have not.
Okay, so scratch any other. Don't watch Lars on Trigger. He can be annoying. Alejandro yodafski. There's a documentary on him. He was supposed to do Dune in the. It was like Dolly was supposed to be in it or some walls isn't possibly the best documentary I've ever seen. It's just really good. I just Google Zoom that will come up. But if you're a doomed fan, that's the film. I saw that in the theater. I've watched it like six times because he's also an amazing line. This guy amazing.
Okay, I will go check that out. There's some great series out there. The documentary that I saw a while back that was Oscar nominated to that I thought was really good was Cryptkamp. I enjoyed watching that.
Oh, I haven't seen that yet.
Go check that out and see it's on that.
All right, cool.
It just opened me up to the disability rights movement in a way that I hadn't. I just didn't know about it. So it was a great learning experience. But what I would suggest is an interesting parallel with Chow is that a lot of the people who started the disability rights movement started out at a camp in New York, like outside of New York City called Camp Jeanette. And they formed the camp did some really interesting things and really kind of set them on this path of changing the world where for the first time, they didn't feel like the other. They were accepted. They got to talk about their issues. They just got to be human beings. They got to date. They got to experience all these things as teenagers that society wasn't letting them experience. And I don't know if Chow and a lot of those other kids would have had the same self belief, the lack of shame, all of those things that happen if they hadn't been in that camp for a certain part of their life. So watch Crypt Camp. I'd love to know what you think.
It's a feature or is it a short?
It's a feature.
Okay, cool. Definitely. I've heard of it. I just didn't watch it yet. So we will definitely watch that because we watch a lot of Dock.
So how can people the last two questions. You've been super generous with your time.
Yeah, no worries.
Is there anything that we missed in this interview that you feel is important to talk about or maybe that we didn't spend enough time on?
I don't think so. I think we covered a lot of interesting points I haven't talked about. So, yeah, I feel good.
Awesome. And how can people reach out and connect and get to know you?
I'm on Instagram, like at Courtney and Marsh, like Courtney, Nicole Marsh, but just the N. So Courtney Nmarsh and feel free to message me or whatever. And then if you want to follow, I'll plug it because my partner is, like, so into it. He is so big on his social media for bottle conditioned. So if you want to follow us there, we give all the updates and where we're going to be in person. There's also clips of the trailer. It's a bottle condition on social media. I think Instagram is my choice. Kind of like that's where I spend my time on social on Versus, all the platforms on Twitter. But, I mean, I just peruse on Twitter. I just look at the carnage on Twitter. I don't really participate. I just like eye troll. I'm just, like looking at what the draw is today. Yeah.
Smart that you don't participate in that.
I'm not ready for it. It's too much. Yeah, it's just not. But social on Instagram. I'm an image person, so it works for me.
Fantastic. Well, thank you so much. This was amazing. I really enjoyed it. And thank you. Any closing words, last statements?
No, that was really wonderful. And if you're, I don't know, you're trying to have any questions, please feel free to reach out. I'm kind of always like an open book in that way. I really mean that because when I was kind of, like, coming into the industry, no one helped me. It just felt very hard to get any insights why I spend time teaching part time, because it's just nice to have that in. So I'm always like to hear you know thoughts or movie recommendations or whatever, but no. Thank you for having me so much.
You're very welcome.