catch 22: based on the unwritten story by seanie sugrue

My phone buzzed with an incoming text from Seanie on a day like any other a couple of summers ago, which is not an uncommon occurrence. The message followed that run-of-the-mill suit, asking if I was not busy enough to go catch a movie together. I was, and we did...Fruitvale Station. We share an affinity for gritty, dark, real drama.

Walking out of the Kips Bay AMC in New York afterwards, we were bullshitting about our take on the film (four thumbs up) and, as conversations between good friends do, that led to a number of other things. One of those things was a writing project I had on my plate at the time, which sparked Seanie flippantly mentioning having gave writing a try once a few years prior, but that he never really got past the title page in the process. Not knowing him to be a writer, my interest was piqued - "uhhh, ok Seanie...what's the fucking story? Pitch me."

What he rattled off was the foundation for what is now catch 22: the unwritten story by seanie sugrue, and we have worked tirelessly together since to refine a story we are now hoping to share with others. During our long filmmaking walk, I would come to find out that the day my phone buzzed about going to see that movie, Seanie had ulterior motives that went far beyond scratching his cinephilia itch. He was six months sober at the time, having weathered a decent alcohol and drug ride not unlike some of the antiheroes of our film, and what he actually needed was a distraction from an urge and a friend that wasn't sitting in a bar at the time.

Looking at the long process in retrospect now, I can see that catch 22 was born from the same thing it's about - friendship. Gritty and dark, but also real, friendship. And having worked on a lot of projects in the past that didn't have that caliber of fuel beneath them, I've learned over the course of this one what it means to really be proud of what you've created. And we are.