The Long-Reigning King of Rollercastle Skateland

I first began writing this film out of a personal desire to feature the depth of Michael Hitchcock's acting abilities in ways that people had not perviously seen. He is hilarious - anyone who knows his work knows that - but he contains within him, bubbling just under the surface of his comedic quirks and overwhelming good-naturedness, the ability to tap into a profoundly lonesome and somehow also optimistic sadness - deeply heartbreaking, extraordinarily compelling. I set it in a roller rink, not out of a specific personal love for roller rinks (though I love them desperately now), but because I was inspired by the real-life long-tenured organ player at a roller rink in the outskirts of Los Angeles. That man had devoted a substantial portion of his life to this incredibly singular (and slightly ridiculous) place that showcased his incredibly specific (and slightly ridiculous) skillset. To imagine that being suddenly ripped out from under him seemed at once a very funny premise, and even more than that, an emotionally crushing one - a beautiful backdrop for Michael's specific range of talents.

But as I wrote, it kept feeling like it was tapping into something much more universal - the pains of being a helpless bystander in the generational changing-of-the-guard, the warm and sometimes misguiding comforts of nostalgia, the seeds of empathy taking root in a young person as we watch her decide whether to foster it or to stamp it out, the unmistakable need for validation, a dwindling sense of real-life community and capitalism's crushing march through the fondly remembered spaces that once held importance. It has myriad allegorical implications (the growing specter of AI in the arts is one that feels appropriate to mention in this forum). We shot in 16mm, which feels like an apt metaphor for the themes of the film, but also paints a singular tonal picture - a low-simmer gossamer haze with all the grit of reality and all of the dreamlike fantasy of an aging man fondly looking back as his neon-draped golden years fade.

While it deals in a lot of the well-trodden territory of aging and generational differences, I wanted to make sure that it was quite distant from the more typical “kids these days” / “ok boomer” dynamic. Aging is inevitable. Generational shift is inevitable. Loss is inevitable. And within all of these inevitabilities is a robust and complex range of subjective human experience that I hope I’ve been able to mine in some small way. I hope that it is a quiet, funny film, that, without feeling saccharine or maudlin, has a ton of a heart, as we watch a man look back on his life while the candle gently burns.