PAST DUE

Growing up in Detroit, I witnessed first-hand the struggles of families navigating poverty, systemic inequities, and fractured fatherhood. Past Due was born out of those experiences — the “what if” questions that haunted me about the cycles we inherit and whether we have the power to break them.

Like Derek, I was raised by a single Black mother. My father was absent from my life, and I never had the chance to reconcile with him. That absence shaped me, and in many ways, Past Due became my way of wrestling with the conversations that never happened. Through Derek and Ray, I wanted to capture the volatility of those imagined encounters — the anger, the longing, the regrets, and the fragile possibility of forgiveness.

This story is deeply personal. Derek represents the young men I grew up with — brilliant, ambitious, but too often pulled into survival choices. Ray represents the absent fathers and men trying, sometimes too late, to repair what was broken. Through their confrontation, I wanted to explore the tension between abandonment and responsibility, anger and forgiveness, destruction and rebirth.

At its core, Past Due also examines timing: the intersection of birth and death, endings and beginnings. I wanted to craft a film where one life leaves as another begins, showing both tragedy and hope.

As a filmmaker, I’m committed to telling stories that expose systemic struggles while affirming humanity. I believe in cinema’s power to spark empathy and dialogue. My goal is for Past Due to resonate not only as a festival short but as a proof-of-concept for a larger body of work examining legacy, family, and redemption.