This month I'm proud to share a couple of pages with some incredibly talented people in FilmInk's feature "New York's First Women of Indie Film." (Click on the cover to check out the full article.) I've looked up to a lot of these artists for awhile now, and it's crazy to me to even be mentioned on the same page as them. Their films are fantastic, and they should absolutely be at the top of your watch list.

It takes a special kind of soul to make a living in filmmaking. That goes for every department from production to catering to the (horribly under-recognized) stunt teams. I like to think that's what makes us more ideologically similar than we are biologically different.

There are some GREAT people in this industry. Really. Substantial human beings who want to make meaningful, exciting work. I've been lucky to deal mainly with the ones who recognize me as an individual and not a demographic, but it's not always like that, and many of my friends (again, of all genders) have faced different experiences.

It's been over fifty years since Lucille Ball (and all the network execs who greenlit the show) put interracial marriage to an immigrant on national television, and we're still sorting this out. I guess people are slow to "officially" change. Personally, I don't know any other way to do it than to just do it.

To me, the best art comes from anger, rebellion, injustice, and tragedy, way more often than it comes from comfort. I do think that fighting for your place in the world is healthy and makes you a better person and artist. Hopefully, that philosophy will not one day bite me in the ass. But I can't make any promises.