Day 6

“Day 6” is a film about love. Ideally, it is about the different ways that love shows itself and how it moves and motivates what happens in life. First, there’s the love that Noel has for his mom, which is generous and devoted but has kept him isolated and emotionally stagnated. Then there is Mother Mary’s motherly love for her son and how she uses it, even in the state she’s in, to essentially ‘take care of her baby’. And it continues with the romantic love that blossoms between Desi and Noel.

The film was initially supposed to be a vehicle for me and a fellow actor friend to both star in. We wanted a very concise, effective, dramatic short that we hoped would showcase our acting skills and in a perfect world, move our careers forward. That all quickly changed once we decided to fully produce the film ourselves and realized the enormous task it is to create a film from start to finish. The role of director was organically given to me because the characters had spoken through me in the writing process and intrinsically, I knew how they wanted to be portrayed. Also, because I knew each character and the story so well, we could expedite the start of production on the project. I'd finished writing the script on a Monday and by Friday of that same week I had met my cinematographer, secured a location to film in, and was already in the casting process. However, what began quickly wound up stretching over a decade to complete. I won't go into all the details in this director's statement about why it took so long getting this project completed. Instead, I will give more details in interviews as this film, hopefully, makes its way into several festivals.

What was at the forefront of my mind when I was writing the script was that the film should be centered around a black male lead who is classically masculine yet unapologetically comfortable in demonstrating the full gamut of his emotions, particularly his vulnerability. I wanted him to be unencumbered by any ideas of acceptable stereotypic masculinity without being an overly idealized male archetype. He is just simply human. Human in a way that I felt was not typically seen in black male characters on screen. I didn’t feel like I saw enough of those characters in films a decade ago when I started this story, and still today I feel they are very much missed and lacking on screen. Noel was created to fill that void.

The other idea that I thought a lot about was how synchronicity and spirituality connect. What really brought Desi into Noel’s life? Was it merely that he needed help taking care of his mom and friend knew a friend who could do the job? Or was it divinely orchestrated through the power of Mother Mary’s prayer? And who is really taking care of who in this story?

I'll end this statement by saying I hope the audience is not just entertained by the movie but finds a piece of themselves in the story or within one of the characters. The film is meant to be relatable...and ultimately, very human.