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Model Citizen

A good man with a troubled past and a daughter in desperate circumstances uses his past wrongs to carve out a better future for his family.

  • Justin Cooper Hankinson
    Writer, Director, Editor
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Genres:
    Drama, Crime, Thriller, Noir
  • Runtime:
    15 minutes 11 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    January 31, 2024
  • Production Budget:
    4,000 USD
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Black & White
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography

Justin Cooper Hankinson comes from Springfield IL and is a Cinema and Photography graduate of Southern Illinois University. He is a Producer on FOX's "The Masked Singer".

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Director Statement

Model Citizen is a milestone project in my filmmaking career, it was the first short I produced in Los Angeles and one we finished shooting mere weeks before the world shut down due to COVID 19. What was a trying year for all was compounded tenfold by the loss of my father, paternal grandmother, and maternal grandfather all within a few months span. Needless to say, I was in a very different place in life when I finished the initial cut of the film, and I'm grateful to have had a respectable festival run. This is the Noir cut. It's far more than just adding a black and white filter though, it was a chance to revisit the film with fresh eyes and recut it from the ground up with some alternate takes, refined sound mixing, and some additional footage shot. I did this because I still believe this story is as timely as it was when it was first released, maybe even moreso now. I hope this new cut firmly cements Model Citizen as a timeless story of redemption.