A 1960s drama in beautiful black and white cinemascope, NORTH COUNTRY centers on a young woman found wandering the desert by an older man who takes her back to his isolated ranch. Over the days they wait for her parents to come pick her up, the uncertainty and barriers between them come down and they develop a complicated, platonic relationship that will impact their lives forever.

A subtextual, tone-poem of a short film in the style of Ernest Hemingway or Cormac McCarthy.

Director’s Vision for ‘North Country’

There is a lot of pressure on a student filmmaker when making their thesis project. Numerous authorities and influences are pulling you in each and every direction to make something unique yet commercial, bold yet universal… something that will set you apart from all the other dreamer filmmakers out there.

I struggled to figure out what that film would be for me, and thought maybe I found it — then COVID hit. Like millions of others, my life (and project) was turned upside down. I took it as a sign – forget what everyone else says and wants and expects from my thesis. I was going to make something I *felt*.

NORTH COUNTRY is that film. It is not conventional, certainly not commercial. But it is uniquely me. In place of easily digestible themes are messages of intangibles, emotions that I have only ever felt but never been able to describe. It’s a film that I allowed to come out of me, rather than force into existence.

I don’t know exactly where the film came from beyond images and feelings in my head and heart that I wasn’t able to shake. I took inspiration from everywhere – authors like Ernest Hemingway and Cormac McCarthy, photographers like Fan Ho and Roy Decarava, painters like Andrew Wyeth, filmmakers like David Lowery and Yoshijiro Ozu. And many others.

This project faced the many challenges of being shot during COVID, battles with my university over length/structure/color, having half the money/crew/days we really need to shoot (in 113 degree Victorville heat, at the ranch MANK was shot and Citizen Kane was written). Was it all worth it? I hope so. In my heart I know so, because no matter what anyone else thinks or says, this is the film I’m most proud of and I couldn’t be more excited to share it with the world.