Life After Death

This film is for anyone who has ever felt like there was something about them that made them different. Often our quirks, our beliefs, our emotions, or our secrets can make us feel isolated. For others, their race, their sexuality, or their religion have made them the target of bigotry and prejudice. It is important to find other people who understand you, and who love you and accept you as you are, and that is what this film is about – people who are a part of our own community, or allies who do their best to support.

The concept behind Life After Death is based on a real situation that many may think is too weird to be true. Each year about 1,000 living people are erroneously added to the Death Master File, a database of every American who has died since 1936. It can happen through a clerical error, like someone mistyping a social security number, or through a weird coincidence like sharing the same name and birthdate as a person who has died. I took this situation, embellished it, and set the story on the fringes our our reality, in hopes the audience would be able to see something about themselves reflected in this group of characters.

In 2018 the story was selected as a finalist for the Indie Memphis Indie Grants program. I enlisted Julia McCloy, a humor writer published in McSweeney's, to co-write the script and help bring the characters to life. The screenplay went on to become a finalist in several festivals and competitions, and now I'm excited to put the film on screens.