Finding Dad

Finding Dad is a film that explores how the baggage of my parents has affected my life. At first, I didn’t intentionally try to set out on a journey of healing and self discovery, but over the course of the filmmaking process I began to actually heal from the pain of my childhood.

Our parents teach us how to navigate life by example. If they lack the tools and skills to deal with their negative patterns, how am I supposed to learn to deal with my own? At least that’s what I think caused a ripple effect in developing my own unhealthy coping mechanisms in order to manage all the baggage of the adults around me. These mechanisms prevented me from obtaining what I truly wanted — love, acceptance, belonging, and family. At some point in my mid twenties I realized that I needed to make a change or stay stuck, and I couldn’t bear staying stuck.

Leading up to this point, I hadn’t been pleased with the trends I had noticed in my life. Like a mirror image of the environment I was raised in, there it was staring me in the face - my parents' bullshit taking its own form in my friendships and love life. Like it or not, I had to hold myself accountable and take responsibility for the negative behaviors I had inherited from my mother and father.

So, I went to Germany in an attempt to find my estranged father and to make a film about it. Camera in hand, I flew to Augsburg where I knew my father last lived. As I filmed and explored, my deeper reasons for being there began to dawn on me. I was on a desperate search for answers to life long questions.

Finding Dad is a film that follows my journey to find my father. I hired an actress to play myself and documented our interactions and discoveries along the way. Finding Dad is a film about the blurred lines between reality and fiction, and how the simple act of storytelling has the monumental power to heal us, connect us, and, ultimately, show us the way.