Today, I’m announcing the online release of Pincus, a very personal, feature length narrative film. It stars my real life father who suffered from Parkinson’s disease. It’s a hybrid of fiction and documentary, partially autobiographical, and a love letter to Miami, Florida, my hometown and a place I’ve had a complicated relationship to. Pincus won the Denver Film Festival: New Directors Award and was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award.

Watch Pincus

In 2011 I moved back home to Miami to help out my parents. Because of his disease, my father could no longer take care of himself. My mother, his primary caretaker for the prior 15 years was reaching a breaking point. I actually had no idea how to help my folks and was overwhelmed by my own unexpressed grief and emotions. Depressed and confused, I dealt with the situation in the only way I knew how at that point. I made a film!

Note that this film is intended for mature audiences and contains brief nudity, and depictions of drug use. To watch it, YouTube requires you to sign into your account and say you’re over 18.

To generate the script, my childhood friend Phil Lord and I decided to go on a “writer’s retreat”. We rented a cabin in Colorado for a week. Everyday we would go for a hike and then write for eight hours. While I wrote Pincus, he penned what would become The Lego Movie. Each evening we would trade scripts, and give each other notes. A most unlikely pairing of projects. The script for Pincus ended up at 24 pages. As a general rule, one page of script equals one minute of movie. So 24 pages is not the standard length for a film expected to be around 90 minutes. I planned to fill in the blanks with improvisation and footage of nature.

Despite my questionable approach to screenwriting and pre-production, Phil always had faith in the project and even financed the film when I was ready to shoot. In fact, he always believed in me, even when I didn’t believe in myself. When I was a “bad”, rebellious teen, failing out of school, he seemed to see a future for me I couldn’t imagine at the time. When I moved out to Los Angeles for graduate school, he let me stay with him until I found a place (and later on, he let me stay with him rent free for long stretches of time, like years long). He has always been a powerful source of support, unconditional love and stability in my life.

Post retreat, it was time to cast the movie and find the locations. For that, my movie angel was Gavin McKenzie. Like Phil, I had know Gavin since I was 5 and we grew up together in Miami. Gavin was in the early stages of running his construction company—he would go on to create a thoughtfully run, creative and thriving business—and was struggling with all of the related stresses. The character of Pincus was based as much on Gavin as it was on me. He provided me with locations, vehicles, and even brought us lunch on a number of occasions. I had worked with him on a few jobs to make extra money and met the unbelievable cast of characters he employed. The character of Dietmar, was played by Dietmar Franusch, one of Gavin's actual employees. When I first met him, he was living in a closet on the construction site he was working on, and reading Dostoyevsky. He was a sweet man with a wild life story, a one of a kind who died of cancer before the film (which is dedicated to him) came out.

After my first feature filmTrona was released, people kept confusing David Nordstom (who played the protagonist in Trona) and me. I’ve never seen the resemblance. He’s 6’2” and descends from vikings, I’m 5’9 and the progeny of Polish and Egyptian Jews. But when I needed someone to play my father’s son, Nordstrom was the obvious choice. Past the apparent physical resemblance, my father knew Nordstrom and was comfortable working with him. I knew I loved working with him and he would embrace most of my unorthodox filmmaking methods (like the fact that I made the film with no crew whatsoever). I would basically create situations with first time actors playing themselves and give Nordstrom an objective in the scene. He was always game and came up with hilarious, brillant and heartfelt improvisations. Without his particular set of skills and energy, there would be no film.

Christi Idavoy plays Anna, Pincus’ love interest, yoga teacher and his guide into the realm of alternative healing. She was the most challenging member of the cast to find. I had a friend who was a yoga teacher who I thought would be great but she was understandably uncomfortable with the nude scene in the film. After meeting dozens of yoga teachers recommended by friends, I finally met Christi. I somehow knew she could be herself on camera and react naturally to the other characters. She brought the character to life and was an insider in a world of healing and spirituality that I was just beginning to know.

Pincus was the first time I got to work with a musician to create an original score for a film. The kind and talented John Clement Wood created the beautiful soundtrack. It’s one of the most enjoyable parts of filmmaking—the film comes alive and transforms so dramatically when the music is added.

This film was originally released through the New York Times. They briefly experimented with feature film distribution long before Op-Docs. I’m not sure who watched it as they didn’t share the data but hopefully a lot of people saw and enjoyed it.

Watch Pincus

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Dear Friends,

In junior high I loved playing basketball and watching Michael Jordan, my hero, on TV. A couple decades later, David Arora, author and mycophile extraordinaire, eclipsed the place in my heart that Jordan previously held. Besides spending time in my heart, I saw another connection between Arora and Jordan. In my mind Arora helped popularize mushrooms and fungi the way Jordan popularized the NBA in the 80s and 90s. Instead of jaw dropping dunks he used his book “All That the Rain Promises, and More...”. This week’s film release is a portrait of Arora and that book. It’s titled The Michael Jordan of Mycology. The title reflects my dream that one day David Arora and mycology will be as popular in the US as basketball and Michael Jordan.

It’s not hyperbole to say that “All That the Rain Promises, and More...” transformed me as much as any book I have read. (Here’s a list of some other books that rocked my world). I’ve bought at least 15 copies over the years. I’ll give one away to anyone who sees it on my bookshelf and seems remotely interested. What I found so revelatory about the book was the way it opened up what a field guide could be for me. It’s a highly respected guide to identifying mushrooms but it’s also a portrait of the mushroom hunting community in the US in all of it’s weird and hilarious glory. Every other field guide I had seen was dry and technical and this book was personal and subjective. It has a section on how to dye your dog with mushroom pigments. Need I say more?

In 2012 I joined a mushroom hunt with Arora and he let me film it. The experience was all I could have hoped for. We ate Amanita muscaria mushrooms, (normally toxic and hallucinogenic, but Arora showed us how to remove both qualities) and he allowed me to explore his home, which was like a hobbit’s cabinet of curiosities.

As far as I can tell, there is very little documentation of this mysterious man online. I’m grateful he allowed me to film him and happy to share it with the world. I hope you enjoy it and drop me a line if you want to discuss this film (or any of the others) further.

Watch THE MICHAEL JORDAN OF MYCOLOGY

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Dear Friends,

Today, I’m sharing a film titled Lineaus Lorette. I met Lineaus in 2011 at the Marfa, Texas farmers market. He was selling leather medicine balls (an old fashioned piece of gym equipment) he made by hand, and a text he wrote titled “Communitarianism”. I was intrigued.

I asked Lineaus if I could film the process he used to create the beautiful medicine balls. He said yes but I ended up filming him making a more impressive and elaborate item, a punching bag. His bags are owned by Mick Jagger, Wes Anderson, and one of the Cohen brothers to name drop a few customers. While we filmed I found out he: collected prison art and homoerotic art; cared for many rescued dogs; sold art deco lamps; ran for senate; was an accountant; the list goes on.

After I made the film Lineaus and I became friends. He also appeared in my film Opuntia. He owned a first edition of Cabeza de Vaca’s book “La Relación” and was as obsessed with the story as I was. I asked him to talk about the book and his interpretation of it. He mostly spoke about how homoerotic de Vaca’s story is. He let me film his opuntia mask for the film as well. He commissioned the mask from Patty Manning. Patty was a botanist and artist, and another one of a kind West Texan. She appears in Opuntia wearing her mask. When Lineaus passed in 2020 he requested most of his unique collections be sold and the money given to charity. I was able to buy the mask and it now lives with my family and me. It’s one of my most treasured possessions. Patty passed last year and I feel like some small part of Lineaus and Patty is here with me.

West Texas is a far less interesting place without Lineaus Lorette. My friend Rachel Monroe (a contributing writer at The New Yorker) wrote an obituary for Lineaus in the Big Bend Sentinel that pays tribute to Lineaus more beautifully than I ever could in print.

I hope you enjoy the film.

Watch LINEAUS LORETTE

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Today, I'm sharing a film titled Puffballs & Earthstars. I've made several films about mushrooms but this one is a deeeep cut.

It's 3 minutes of mushroom eruptions and a musique concrète score recorded live on stage by a crew of legendary Marfa musicians.

"But David", you might say, "how can a tree hugger and fungifile such as yourself revel in the destruction of these mushrooms?!"

Well, these are the fruitbodies of fungi that live mostly underground. Their raison d'etre is to spread spores to the wind, usually set in motion by raindrops falling on them. So this video represents trillions of microscopic reproductive cells helped along by human hands.

The score was recorded at the Marfa Myths music festival in 2016. I was asked to contribute something to the lineup so I put this film together from my trove of iPhone mushroom videos. I asked several musicians to play along on stage. Rob Mazurek, who just scored The Mastermind by Kelly Reichart (among my very favorite filmmakers, and I think she went to my high school in Miami), pre-recorded electronic explosions. Then Anthony DeSimone, Ross Cashiola, Robert Gungor, Alex Marks and Simone Rubi made wild sounds on stage. It was incredible to see the film come alive with their sonic interpretation. The sound check is pictured below.

Also, to be on the same bill as Swedish rockers Dungen, and the sublime Jefre Cantu-Ledesma and Liz Harris was a dream.

I hope you enjoy the film.

Watch PUFFBALLS & EARTHSTARS

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Dear Friends,

Today, I'm sharing a film titled The Trip by poet Eileen Myles. I didn't write or direct this one but I did produce, shoot and edit it.

The film is a road trip movie through the majestic, rough-hewn landscape separating Texas towns Marfa and Alpine with Eileen as our guide. Inspired by Jack Kerouac’s spoken score of Robert Frank’s 1958 poetic classic Pull My Daisy, and Louis Malle’s 1981 talk drama My Dinner With Andre, Myles discusses daily life and political realities with their childhood puppets, Oscar, Bedilia, Montgomery, Casper, and Crocky.

I first saw Eileen read from their book Afterglow (a dog memoir) years ago. The book features the puppets that would later star in our film. It was a powerful reading and it left a big impression. At some point we were introduced at a Marfa house party and talked about movies the whole time. I learned that Eileen wrote a script adapted from their book Chelsea Girls and was interested in filmmaking. This was all years before The Trip.

The whole process of making The Trip, from conception to our first public screening, was dreamy. We conceived the film in the Marfa Dairy Queen. A few days later we asked the Poetry Foundation in Chicago if they would be interested in supporting the project (which included shooting on Super 8 film) and they immediately said yes. Eileen had their childhood dolls that would star in the film flown out to Marfa by a friend. We enlisted an A-Team of Marfans to help with puppetry and other aspects of production. We sent the film off to the lab and it all came back looking great. We cut it together and premiered it in February of 2019 at the gorgeous Poetry Foundation in Chicago. It went on to screen in Australia, England, Belgium, New York City (at a cinematic temple, the Metrograph Theater), and other places around the world. We recently screened The Trip at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. It was a pleasure to make the film with Eileen and we periodically get to hang out and do Q & A's together.

Making a film isn't usually so smooth, but it's a beautiful thing when it is. It feels more like channeling something than wrestling it into existence. I've only had a couple other film experiences that went that way. They were both highly collaborative and I'll write about them in coming weeks.

Hoping the second Myles/Fenster production will be in the works soon. We talk about making another film every time we see each other.

Watch THE TRIP

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Dear Friends,

Today, I'm announcing the online release of Bob Cummings, Mycologist (8 min). Anyone who knows me, knows I'm super interested in mushrooms and fungi. I've made 11 films on the subject. And this is the first one from 2010.

I'll go into more detail on my mycological obsession (how it started, where it has taken me) in future essays, but I want to get the fungal ball rolling with this film.

I met Bob Cummings through the Los Angeles Mycological Society, the first (but not the last) mushroom club I was a member of. He was a guest speaker at one of our meetings. A few months later, when I was putting together a weeklong event called FungiFest at the Los Angeles art space Machine Project, I asked Bob if he would be the resident mycologist. That entailed guiding mushroom hunts in LA parks and being around at all the events to answer questions and ID mushrooms. He agreed, and I thought it would also be cool to make a video with him. The video was a mushroom hunting primer and a way people could get to know Bob before we headed out to find fungi.

Over the course of that glorious week, I interviewed Bob dressed as a mushroom, he set up a slime mold race (and people bet on the outcome), and he won everybody's hearts with his friendly, enthusiastic and knowledgeable ways. One of my biggest filmmaking regrets was realizing, after we finished filming, that Bob owned a black Porsche with a vanity plate that read BLKTRFL (black truffle after the prized and expensive fungus). I would have loved to film him mushroom hunting in that vehicle. Instead we used his Subaru Outback.

I hope you enjoy the film! Brace yourself for several more mushroom movies in the coming months...

Watch BOB CUMMINGS, MYCOLOGIST

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Dear Friends,

Today, I'm announcing the online release of two related films, The Apple Pan (8 min) and Inglewood Boxing Gym (10 min). The Apple Pan is a portrait of a legendary burger place in Los Angeles and Inglewood Boxing Gym is about a boxing program for kids. Inglewood Boxing Gym was made in 2010 and The Apple Pan is from 2008. The Apple Pan was never released online so this is the first time it's available to watch in 17 years!

The common denominator in these films is Hector Morales. Hector is a counterman at the Apple Pan going on 40+ years. He also started and ran the boxing program featured in Inglewood Boxing Gym.

I met Hector as a patron of the restaurant but we didn't talk much. All of the countermen seemed super busy. They were friendly but I was a bit intimidated by them. They had a mystique. It was as though I time travelled to another era and didn't want to alter the future with any foolish behavior. The restaurant opened in 1947 and time stood still: the beverages came in paper cones nested in steel cone holders; the cash register was from the 40s; the wood paneling on the wall and the original family recipes never changed; and most of the employees had been there for several decades (some patrons have been coming regularly for decades too).

It's a unique place and it doesn't seem like a schtick. I asked Sunny Sherman and Martha Gamble, the mother/daughter owners (Martha was the daughter of the original founders) if I could make a film about it and they said yes.

The shoot was great. I got to see the stuff you never see when they're open. The guys made off menu food for themselves on the griddle, I saw how all the food was prepped and made, and I got to experience the place empty, which it never was when they were open. But the coolest part was I got to know Hector. We became friends and at some point he invited me to visit his boxing program in Inglewood.

Hector was a boxer in Juarez when he was younger. He wanted to give kids something to do after school so he taught them how to box. The program also gave the kids confidence and a safe way to let off steam.

These films illustrate something that often happens in my filmmaking life: one project organically leads to another project. I'll meet someone who does something interesting and it turns out they do other interesting things. The thing that strikes me all these years later is Hector's dedication to his job and serving the community. If you stop by the Apple Pan, say hello.

Watch INGLEWOOD BOXING GYM

Watch THE APPLE PAN

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Dear Friends,

Today, I'm announcing the online release of the Marfa Field Guide films. This is a collection of six films about the relationship between humans and nature in Marfa, Texas. The films were commissioned by arts non-profit Marfa Live Arts and are now available online for the first time.

Marfa Field Guide was a collaboration with my wife, Laura Copelin. Laura was the curator and director of the art space Ballroom Marfa when we lived there. Many of the exhibitions she organized at Ballroom related to the natural world and we both share an interest in plants and ecology.

These films are short vignettes, notes from the field, sketches—one film was shot entirely on a phone by our friend Vicente (who also played the voice of Cabeza De Vaca in my film Opuntia). The series catalogs ways of relating—killing, caring for, collecting––and the idea was to document without judgement. Like some of my projects (see Wood) this series suggests the possibility of a larger body of work that didn’t come to be. But an interest in how humans participate in our ecosystems is now central to my work and life—I’m the nature Producer at a PBS station and my desire to connect with plants, animals, fungi, and rocks has deepened inside and outside of my work.

The films in the Marfa Field Guide are:

Mary and the Elf Owl (2 min): bird rescuer Mary Farley rehabs the world's smallest owl.

Paul's Marfa Agates (1 min): Rock shop owner Paul Graybeal introduces us to the signature rock of Marfa.

Vicente and the Bees (2 min): when a swarm of bees takes up residence near Vicente Celis' juice bar, drastic and harmful removal suggestions fly. Vicente takes a kinder path and asks beekeeper Wilborn Elliott to help out.

Joy The Fur Trapper (3 min): Cowboy Hall of Fame honoree (and sister of beekeeper Wilborn Elliott from Vicente and the Bees) Joy Rawls recounts her unconventional life as a trapper.

Donald Judd’s Nature Books (2 min): iconic artist Donald Judd’s house in Marfa contains a library with thousands of books. We focus on his nature book collection and hear a selection from Judd's notes dated December 3, 1986, read by Marfa poet and bookstore owner Tim Johnson.

Dr. Powell’s Herbarium (3 min): an intimate portrait of a herbarium (a collection of preserved plant specimens) founded by Dr. Michael Powell.

Watch MARFA FIELD GUIDE

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Dear Friends,

Today, I'm announcing the online release of Psychic Reading of the Gamble House (11 minutes). It was commissioned by the beloved Los Angeles art space Machine Project in 2014. Machine took over the Gamble House and programmed all sorts of happenings. The home is a Pasadena historical landmark and icon of the Arts and Crafts movement (featured in the original Back to the Future as Doc Brown's laboratory). For two weeks, our film was installed in the upstairs linen closet (see photo below).

The film is a collaboration between Asher Hartman and me. In the film Asher communes with the spirits in and around the house and reports the messages he's receiving.

Asher and I met in 2012 at the Machine Project space in Echo Park. An auspicious day for me––I met my wife Laura that day too. Laura and I were part of Machine's 90 Day Curatorial Academy. On the first day of class, we were asked not to talk to anybody until class started. Then Asher came in and taught us how to be psychics. We were told to meditate, gaze into each other's eyes, and say the first things that came into our heads, unfiltered. An awkward, amazing ice-breaker. I knew two things that day: I wanted to keep learning how to be psychic (or intuitive as it's often called), and I wanted to be friends with Asher.

Initially, I documented several of Asher's plays (he runs a theater company called Gawdawful National Theater) as a way to hang out with him. They are sublime and indescribable with names like Dope Elf, Purple Electric Play, and Sorry, Atlantis: Eden's Achin' Organ Seeks Revenge. Later, he appeared in my film Opuntia and guided me through the process of making the film. At one point he encouraged me to take mediumship classes at a place called The Green Man in North Hollywood. That way I could communicate directly with the spirit of Cabeza de Vaca, the conquistador-turned-shaman star of the film who died hundreds of years ago.

I don't know what happens when Asher gives me a reading, but I know it helps me get in touch with a part of life (call it spiritual or mystical or whatever you want) that doesn't get a lot of attention from our culture these days. Trying to hear and be guided by those energies makes me feel like my life isn't so random or meaningless. I don't claim to know exactly what those forces are or how they work, and neither does Asher. But he once told me that he functions like a mirror for people. He reflects who they are at a deep level, and that lets them see themselves in a new way. And it can have a powerful effect. Just to see myself reflected in a surprising way helps me understand that I am more complex, capable, and beautiful than I realized.

Asher can mirror people and he can mirror houses. So I filmed him reading this famous house. If you think the psychic stuff is all bogus, that's okay. Hopefully you can appreciate the poetry of Asher's language as it pours over the elegance of the home.

PSYCHIC READING OF THE GAMBLE HOUSE

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Dear Friends,

Today, I'm announcing the online release of Opuntia, a supernatural true story based on the writings of 16th century conquistador-turned-shaman Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca. The film was finished in 2018 and took several years to make. It may be my most ambitious film if not my strangest.

This is an important moment for Opuntia because it was never digitally released. It's now available to watch online for the first time. The film played at film festivals and had a tiny theatrical run, but then the pandemic hit and my partner and I had a child so the release of the film stalled a bit, until now!

If you’re sad you missed your chance to see it on the big screen, and happen to live or be in Houston this week (Wednesday, March 26, 6 p.m.) Opuntia will play at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

Cabeza de Vaca is one of the strangest figures in the history of the Americas. Tracing his route through the “New World” and the physical markers of his journey, Opuntia reimagines his spiritual transformation along the way. I collaborate with a psychic, learn mediumship, and use poetic techniques to channel his struggles as he wanders lost and naked from Florida all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

I first encountered the story of Cabeza de Vaca in Rebecca Solnit's book, A Field Guide to Getting Lost (one of my favorite books). Shortly after that, my mom synchronously gave me a copy of Cabeza de Vaca's book. Spoiler alert: Cabeza de Vaca made it back to Spain after walking across what is now the US and Mexico and was able to write his own story. It became a literary hit in Spain. I've heard that Cervantes, a contemporary of Cabeza de Vaca's, based Don Quixote on the book.

Cabeza de Vaca's book goes by many different names: Naufragios, La Relación, Castaways, Chronicle of the Narvaez Expedition, The Shipwrecked Men. I read it in one sitting. It struck me as the strangest, most interesting story and conveyed something deep and mysterious about the origins of the United States. And it felt modern somehow, even though it was written almost 500 years ago.

I grew up in Florida, where the first section of the book takes place, and I wondered why we hadn't been taught about this person in school. Apparently kids in Texas learn about Cabeza de Vaca, but it’s usually just a few lines about how he was the first European explorer of that state.

In the last shot of Pincus, the feature film I made before Opuntia, the protagonist climbs into a hole in the ground. Opuntia is about what happens inside that hole. The hole contains darkness, mystery, the unknown, depression, fear, growth, and transformation. For me, Cabeza de Vaca’s story spoke to all of those things.

In a way, Opuntia felt like the third part in a trilogy of autobiographical films. My first three feature films: Trona (2004), Pincus (2012), and Opuntia (2018), explored the challenges I faced at those points in my life. Trona, my first feature, is about trying to run away from myself and my life; Pincus is about attempting to show up for the challenges in my life, and searching for mystery, meaning, and magic; Opuntia, is about trying to let life, even when it seems really shitty, transform me. This arrangement wasn’t conscious at the time, but I noticed it (as did others: shout-out to Maggie Mackay and Phil Lord) after the films were all finished.

It’s difficult to write about this film because it feels less like I made it and more like it happened to me. There were car crashes, synchronicities, and lessons to speak with the dead. I won’t go into detail about those elements, but if you watch the film, you’ll see what I mean.

The darkest depression of my life occurred at the tail end of this film. After I spent years making the film, and submitted to a number of film festivals, Opuntia received rejection letters left and right. I kept asking myself “Why am I still making films?! Why did I spend years making this film?! I don’t make any money, very few people want to see my films, and I devote my life to them. What’s wrong with me?!” My life as a filmmaker felt like a complete and utter failure. There was some extremely negative self-talk happening. Years before the rejection letters, when the Opuntia journey began, I was struggling with my mental health and went to therapy for the first time. At the end of the first session, the therapist told me I was grieving. My father, a veterinarian by trade, who was the co-star of my film Pincus, and makes an appearance in Opuntia, had been slowly declining from Parkinson’s Disease over the past 15 years. I told the therapist she must not have understood, I can’t be grieving because my dad is still alive. She said “You can grieve for people that are still here.”

The therapy, meditation, and other mental health care practices I began helped to a certain extent, but as Opuntia neared completion (and my father declined to the point of entering hospice), I was totally depressed, anxious, and lost. I was called to try psychedelics for the first time in my life. That initial experience was intensely cathartic. Decades of grief poured out of me and my heart opened up (for a few hours at least). The perception of my life transformed from one of failure, lack, and pain, to one of gratitude, abundance, and beauty. It’s nearly 10 years later and I still fall into times of sorrow, fear, and feeling sorry for myself but I try to see these periods as opportunities to grow, heal, and open my heart. FYI: the psychedelics were just the start. A lot of healing work had to happen outside of those experiences and I did them in very safe and supportive conditions.

Getting back to Cabeza de Vaca: his story must have spoken to me as instructive in what I was personally wrestling with, but it also suggested to me how our society could transform from one of colonization to one of healing. How the pain and trauma of slavery, Indigenous genocide, and the desecration of the land might be addressed. Enrique Madrid, the historian that lived in the border town of Redford, TX (about an hour from where I lived in Marfa) was able to speak to the painful history of the land and people, and the missed opportunities for Europeans (and now Americans) to learn from those who have survived and thrived in this land for thousands of years. To me, the entire film hinges on Enrique’s ability to give voice to these ideas that were impossible for me to articulate at the time. It also brings to mind an amazing section from Solnit’s A Field Guide to Getting Lost: “Eduardo Galeano notes that America was conquered, but not discovered, that the men who arrived with a religion to impose and dreams of gold never really knew where they were, and that this discovery is still taking place in our time…But Cabeza de Vaca and his companions would be conquered by this land and its people and he at least seems to have found out where he was.”

Most of the voiceover in the film comes directly from Cabeza de Vaca’s book. But at some point I wanted to add my own words to help shape the narrative and include elements of my journey. Initially, I felt I didn’t have the right to do that. After working on the film for a few years, I suddenly felt like whatever blocked me was lifted. Healing and the removal of inner and outer obstacles seems to happen that way: after a lot of work, the boundaries spontaneously, and without explanation, disappear. My two main additions to the story were a section where Cabeza de Vaca tries to heal his father when he returns to Spain, and a poetic monologue at the end of the film about the world of our dreams and the waking world being the same place.

As I worked on the film, my friend Vicente Celis recorded a temporary voiceover track in Spanish for me. He's from Mexico, so his accent didn’t line up with a conquistador from Spain and I planned to replace him when I found another actor. I eventually got David Verdaguer, a Spanish actor who had won multiple Goyas (The Spanish equivalent of an Oscar) to be the voice of Cabeza de Vaca. But when I swapped Vicente’s voice out, I realized the film was missing something. I had fallen in love with Vicente’s voice. I ended up using Verdaguer’s voice at the beginning of the film and transitioning to Vicente’s voice as the character transforms from conquistador to shaman.

There is so much more to say about the film, but maybe that’s enough for now. I might do a separate post about an event I put together at the Machine Project art space that centered on Cabeza de Vaca and involved a $1000 ham and a nude film screening. I’ll talk more about my dad when I release Pincus. I’ll talk about Asher Hartman (who appears in the film and is a cherished friend and collaborator) in my essay about Psychic Reading of the Gamble House. Asher and I made that film together and I uploaded it this week. You can watch it before the essay comes out if you like.

Opuntia was the only film I used crowdfunding to finance. Thanks to all the Kickstarter supporters, especially Randi Malkin Steinberger (also my first Patreon supporter for this film release project!) and Mikelle Kruger who became executive producers on the film.

Opuntia played at the Viennale (Vienna, Austria), Los Angeles Film Festival, Miami Film Festival, Borscht Film Festival (Miami, FL), CineMarfa, Austin Film Society, El Paso Museum of Art, RiverRun Film Festival (Winston-Salem, NC), Amherst Cinema and the Jean Cocteau Theater in Santa Fe, the cutest theater in the world.

Watch OPUNTIA

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Dear friends,

A couple weeks ago, I shared my latest documentary, Neuro Osmosis. Today, I'm announcing the online release of the first documentary I directed, Wood. It was made in 2007, won the Best Short Documentary Award at the Los Angeles Film Festival, screened at the True/False Film Festival, and was purchased by the PBS show POV. Some of the essays I write for these films will be short, and some, like this one, will be more in depth. Here's a description of the film:

Wood follows the journey of timber from the forest through the sawmill and presents a portrait of the working men we find along the way. Despite the controversy that surrounds the timber industry, Wood eschews easy politics, focusing instead on the actual workers, machines, and raw materials involved.

I had two major influences when I made Wood: Studs Terkel's book Working and the films of Fredrick Wiseman.

Wiseman mainly makes films about American institutions—High School, Zoo, Public Housing... They were the first non-fiction films I'd seen that weren't telling me what to think or feel. I had space to move around in them. There wasn't any added music to manipulate me emotionally or set a tone. Watching these films could be challenging but I also found them captivating. I wanted to bring this openness and respect for the audience to my films.

Like Wiseman’s films, Terkel's oral history books catalog American life, but seemed more oriented to feeling and connection. I sensed the curiosity and compassion of both men and appreciated their differing expressions of those qualities. "Working" is a series of over 100 interviews. People talk about their jobs and how they relate to their inner lives. It's intimate and poignant and somehow adds up to something profound and panoramic. It’s one of the most illuminating portraits of the United States I’ve encountered. Based on Terkel's interview methods, I decided to record audio-only interviews for Wood. With no camera present, people relaxed and things felt more conversational. I also thought talking heads in the film would detract from the sense of the mill's hermetic world, and the expression of the worker's interior lives.

The idea was that Wood could be the first in a series about natural resources. The films would be about appreciating these precious gifts from the land and the human effort in harvesting them. There would be Oil, Water and others. Those films still haven't materialized but I did end up making films about oil and water in a different format.

In the years leading up to Wood, my interest in ecology began to crystalize. I wanted to make a "nature film" but the conventional methods didn't speak to me. I wanted to present this particular relationship of forest to humanity and let people make of it what they would. The idea was to remind people that a simple 2x4 was part of a forest at one point, and its transformation from tree to lumber was touched by many lives.

There are three people that profoundly supported this film's existence: Phil Lord, Cy Kuckenbaker, and Devin McNulty. Phil, my close friend for over 40 years now, wrote me a $2,000 check when I graduated from CalArts and said "This is for your next film". And Wood was made for exactly $2,000. The only way that was possible was thanks to Cy and Devin. The three of us drove up to Oregon together for the shoot. Devin did all the sound recording. Cy produced the entire film and got permission from the sawmill to film, which was no small task. I have one particularly fond memory of the three of us drinking moonshine in the forest with Rusty, who worked at the sawmill and took us under his wing, while Devin played his clarinet under the stars.

The film was shot on a Panasonic DVX-100 video camera. Prior to its release, the only way to get a similar look would have been to shoot on film. That camera, and others like it, ushered in a whole new era of digital filmmaking. It’s much lower resolution than current digital cameras, but it retains an interesting texture. One of my film students saw Wood and said it had "a cool, early 2000s look".

Editing took me over a year. I was learning how to make a documentary where much of the film is made in the edit. There is an hour-long version of this film that only Phil and Hans Hurch, the director and curator of the Viennale film festival, have seen. Hans encouraged me to shorten it. I think it was the right call and I learned how to let go of material that I was attached to, but didn't ultimately serve the film. Hans passed away in 2017 and was a huge supporter of my work.

One final note: I won my first award for this film, the Best Documentary Short award at the Los Angeles Film Festival. It was an exciting moment where anything felt possible. In that spirit, I met a man in the bathroom at the awards ceremony who congratulated me, said he liked the film, and gave me his business card. The card said Jeff "The Dude" Dowd. He was the inspiration for the Cohen brothers film The Big Lebowski. I looked at the card in awe.

Watch WOOD

The next film out will be Opuntia. This is a big one. My friend Joe called it my magnum opus. It’s certainly my most far out film. It had a tiny theatrical run, and then the pandemic hit, and then my partner and I had a child… so the release of the film stopped being priority and kind of fell through the cracks. Until now! It will finally be out there for all to see.

Watch The OPUNTIA Trailer

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You can learn more about my work on my website and Instagram.

Dear friends,

Neuro Osmosis is my most recent film and it's the first film I've shot in black and white. It’s a 13 minute documentary about the uncanny connection between artist Nick Terry's abstract paintings and his late father's electron microscope images of brain tissue. Dr. Robert Terry was a neuropathologist who did pioneering work on Alzheimer’s disease and pushed the boundaries of electron microscopy.

Nick is a close friend of mine. He organized the Zen meditation group I was part of in Marfa. He officiated my wedding. A few years ago, Nick told me a strange story about connecting with his deceased father. It made the hairs on my neck stand up. We had both lost our fathers, and I’ve always been interested in the possibility of communication beyond the grave. Nick's story spoke to that possibility in a lyrical way, and his story became this film.

Nick and I produced and edited the film together. In addition to being a skilled painter, Nick composes music. He created the score for this film with Phil Boyd (they have a project together called Air Field) and Jazz legend Rob Mazurek. The soundtrack is available at Air Field's Bandcamp.

The film screened at CineMarfa, Sutra House (Riehen, Switzerland), Bartha Contemporary (London, England), Galveston Art Residency, and the American Association of Neuropathologists Annual Meeting (which is probably the most unusual place one of my films has shown).

Director, Cinematographer, Co-Editor, Co-Producer: DAVID FENSTER
Co-Editor, Co-Producer: NICK TERRY
Music: AIR FIELD, KIMAZUI CHINMOKU, ROB MAZUREK

Watch NEURO OSMOSIS

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You can learn more about my work on my website and Instagram.

Dear Friends,

Today I begin the release of my entire archive of films online. I'll put out one film every two weeks, free for all to watch on YouTube. I’ll also post a little essay about each film here and on Patreon.

The archive includes 4 feature length films and dozens of short films.

At my day job, I produce and direct nature videos for PBS. However, I've made independent films since the early 2000s and I continue that practice today.

These award-winning, personal, idiosyncratic films are about everything from mushrooms to model railroads. They arise from a deep and mysterious place in me. I can confidently say that there aren't any other films quite like them.

My films play around the world and have shown at The Museum of Modern Art and Sundance Film Festival. Several of them were distributed by media outlets including Netflix and The New York Times.

As of this year, all the rights to these films have reverted back to me and I want them all to be available and free to watch. I’m launching this project to release and reflect on my entire archive over the coming months.

I’ll create a separate post for the first film, Neuro Osmosis, in two weeks. But I've included a link below if you're interested in a sneak preview. It's 13 minutes long and the only film I've ever made in black and white.

The film is about my friend Nick Terry and his late father Dr. Robert Terry. Nick is an artist, and Dr. Terry was a neuropathologist who did pioneering work on Alzheimer’s disease and pushed the boundaries of electron microscopy. It looks at the uncanny connection between Nick's abstract paintings and his fathers electron microscope images of brain tissue.

Watch NEURO OSMOSIS

You can support this effort and the production of future films by signing up for a paid subscription:

Subscribe now

You can learn more about my work on my website and Instagram.