DIRECTORS STATEMENT:
For as long as I can remember, I wondered, “Why do we need movies? Do they serve some higher purpose?” And then it hit me. Film and art are what stabilize us. We can escape reality and enter into another world, maybe one that is better or more revealing or more interesting.
Bob Marley once said that music has the power to heal. So does film. And that is why I had to make “Mumford’s Law.” I hope the power of the story will move others. Everyone has some notion of what family is or what they want it to be. Telling my family’s story has opened up a universe of understanding for me, and I believe that audiences will relate to our lives and connect as well.
Making the film has been an extremely emotional experience for me. Looking at the first few days of footage wiped me out. I didn’t think I could cut the film. But I forced myself to go forward, shot by shot, scene by scene, and then the film took control of me and the process. I had never thought that the journey of my father and his family would include me. It felt like the film was pulling me in, informing, driving and exposing the deeper meanings behind it.
The project took five years. It’s a big chunk of my life because I started when I was seventeen. So many times, people would ask me, “What are you filming?” “A documentary on my father’s life.” And the reactions were always the same. Everyone would bring up their own father and the story that was never told, usually hidden just to protect them. From what? Pain? The truth? Healing? Was this some kind of universal revelation? The reactions, the questions and the answers confronting me as I shot and edited drove me, compelled me to go on.
For as long as I can remember, I wondered, “Why do we need movies? Do they serve some higher purpose?” And then it hit me. Film and art are what stabilize us. We can escape reality and enter into another world, maybe one that is better or more revealing or more interesting.
Bob Marley once said that music has the power to heal. So does film. And that is why I had to make “Mumford’s Law.” I hope the power of the story will move others. Everyone has some notion of what family is or what they want it to be. Telling my family’s story has opened up a universe of understanding for me, and I believe that audiences will relate to our lives and connect as well.
Making the film has been an extremely emotional experience for me. Looking at the first few days of footage wiped me out. I didn’t think I could cut the film. But I forced myself to go forward, shot by shot, scene by scene, and then the film took control of me and the process. I had never thought that the journey of my father and his family would include me. It felt like the film was pulling me in, informing, driving and exposing the deeper meanings behind it.
The project took five years. It’s a big chunk of my life because I started when I was seventeen. So many times, people would ask me, “What are you filming?” “A documentary on my father’s life.” And the reactions were always the same. Everyone would bring up their own father and the story that was never told, usually hidden just to protect them. From what? Pain? The truth? Healing? Was this some kind of universal revelation? The reactions, the questions and the answers confronting me as I shot and edited drove me, compelled me to go on.
