Ashes Under The Sand

Director Statement

This film and the characters it follows are deeply personal to me. Ashes Under The Sand is as much a quiet, tender meditation on male friendships as it is a biting look at toxic masculinity. Despite their criminal profession, the protagonists suffer from the problems of our current climate. They desire a better life but lack the means to achieve it. They feel disposable in the workplace. Years of things better left unsaid begin to tear friendships apart. Too many men would let their world crumble around them rather than share their feelings. This story explores these flawed male coping mechanisms: suppression of fear, shame, love, feelings of inadequacy; the list goes on. The characters are in this predicament together, but still feel alone with their thoughts. Existential isolation quickly sets in, and it all reaches a violent boiling point.

In this story, three life-long friends are forced to reassess their relationships with each other and who they are as individuals. How will they fit into each other’s lives moving forward? How will they suffer the consequences of the choices they have made? What is going to change when all is said and done?

With a growing number of films and television shows portraying white, middle-class 20-somethings coming to New York to use Manhattan as the backdrop of their self-discovery, it’s important for me to shine a light on the everyday people who have been in New York for generations but still feel trapped. People in “the boroughs” live far away from those big city dreams, and don’t often get the credit they deserve. People are dying to come here, but so many are dying to get out.