BELIEF

BELIEF tells the story of one Mother’s journey. It was written with deep reverence for the most pivotal and thankless role on the planet, Motherhood.

The story’s inception is a curious one. My wife Erika was fired by her Hollywood manager when he learned she was pregnant with our first child. That moment seeded this film with a firm intent.

After writing the script, Erika and I waited for our children to grow old enough to play the film’s central roles alongside her. We believe the performances have a deeper resonance as a result. As we waited, certain aspects of the script were reflected in our lives, a case of life imitating art. For a racially-mixed family blessed with learning challenges, this film became a mission statement.

In craft, our storytelling was keenly focused on the emotional logic of the film. In detailing everyday moments, we resisted traditional impulses to overstate and glorify. Imagery was crafted in an unceremonious style where the visual palette of the film’s whole is greater than the sum of its individual shots.

The challenge we faced in telling this story was distilling down all of the key contributing elements a mother gives to her child. The language we developed to tell this story seeds a bunch of (seemingly) disparate moments early in the film and as the film progresses, lets the viewer connect the dots on all the decisions that shaped her son, Lennox.

This approach paralleled my own mother’s lessons gathered from seemingly innocuous moments. Including moment’s when my own mother flat out rejected the prevailing voice of the time. This film elevates, against all odds, the transcendent power of a mother’s unyielding BELIEF.