Let’s start from the beginning, like some biological data and how is it like to grow up and create in Philadelphia, native city of a legendary director like Sidney Lumet?
Philly is a great city but film-wise it’s not very communal. There are a few from here but not a huge scene amassed. It’s very hard to network at times.
What was your first creative work before getting to the visual arts?
I always drew, made comics, etc. I’ve always made films though, from the time I had my first camera I would run around the woods with friends making films.
Did you study in a movie director school?
I did not study any type of art or filming. Everything has been a learned love for me.
Going back to your earlier movies BELOW MAN and FRANK EDGE JR, how were they funded, and were these your first works at the camera?
I didn’t have many bills to pay, I was young so I was able to finance myself and
film as I could.
Did you work with horror and disturbing stuff from the beginning?
I tend to just do what comes natural at the time. Sometimes it’s been horror in the past there were comics and making creature flicks.
Drifting from Below Man to Frank Edge jr. you moved from a sci-fi/gore tale to
something more deviated disturbing and introspective. Watching Frank Edge is a bit like moving between the twisted corridors of depression and insanity. Have you further developed this idea with Flowers?
I don’t compare them or with intent at least. They’re totally different ideas to me that I don’t find fuel one another.
Is the idea of not having dialogue in Flowers meant to add another layer of introspect to what’s happening at the six girls, like a sort of stream of consciousness?
It is and it isn’t. I’m definitely more drawn to visual story telling, it doesn’t
seem necessary to try to spell out the idea with words. I like to let people take things how they do and it interests me to see what they think is happening without forcing context down anyone’s throat. I guess it adds
another level by that logic but only personally.
Regarding your work as a director and writer, what was the main difference between working on Flowers and on Lung II? You mention a 8-segment structure of writing movies, have you taken other major lessons or actually practiced as an assistant to some other professional director before Lung II? And btw, is there a Lung I, some sort of lost/hidden short from your early days?
Flowers was definitely a far more epic undertaking. A lot of moving parts, a lot of moving people. Lung was actually kinda a slow wind down for me. It was a way to decompress while adding to the narrative that is the flowers universe. It’s difficult to go from the chaos of a huge project to nothing without having a residual need to continue that self expression. I’ve never worked under anyone I self taught with the assistance of course of those who inspired me which are a lot to name. In response to lung I, it does exist but it’s only a different cut of lung II available on the unearthed release.
Getting back to Frank Edge Jr, Flowers looks way more visceral, that kind of feel you have in a Cronenberg movie, did you want to explore the mind and body of man from the inside out?
Really Frank was just a decent into total madness. How easily it could occur, what can happen. A look into something most don’t understand.
While shooting flowers you mention working with real raw meat, was it by realism instead of using prosthetics or did it just cost less?
Definitely for a more realistic effect. It doesn’t keep, you can’t just keep using it so cost wise it’s not much relief. I wanted a more genuine effect, that’s the way I saw it and so that was how I executed it. Using real always films better, if you have access it doesn’t make sense to try to replicate it.
How did the collaboration with Unearthed Films came into being? Did you already know Biro?
I think this would best be answered by Biro the man himself.
Let’s move on to Manomatul art. Do you plan to experiment through various media such as sculpture or maybe some sound installation as well in the future? Have you thought of a project that would combine your crafts as with Flowers? Do you paint at a particular time or you just go with inspiration? Is the world of painting somehow different in feel from filmmaking, like, does it give a different sensation of accomplishment since you actually do all the work instead of sharing collaboratively as in a movie?
Paradis is a project that’s been worked on for a bit now that’s a good answer for
this one. It’s kinda a combination of everything you asked a very mixed media piece but definitely something that’ll come up in the future I can’t give up to much on that right now.