Six years ago, at the age of not-22, I decided to go to film school - and this movie is what happened.

OK, Magic Hour is not precisely what happened.

The film is a highly fictionalized account of what happens when, after many years of procrastination and self-recrimination, one puts their dream to the test.

The adventures and self-reckoning I experienced going back to film school with classmates half my age are at the root of my inspiration for Magic Hour. 

Beginning again is exciting, but humbling, and no reality can live up to the imagined perfection of a dream.

Ultimately, I found the beautiful, supportive film tribe I had hoped for, and in this film, I attempt to depict all of that with love (and gentle satire).

When I had my first few brushes with the professional filmmaking world, I pined (as the protagonist Harriet does) for the love-fest of film school. On professional film sets, I witnessed forms of bullying and misogyny that I had seen in the corporate world, but I had found blissfully absent at film school. I knew it was possible – and better – to create films without that bullying culture.

Magic Hour posits a world in which kindness rules the day, “even in the goddamned film business.”

While Harriet’s estranged husband, her boss, her cinematographer, and the rival Lacrosse coach all believe they live in a “dog-eat-dog” world in which kindness equals weakness. Harriet challenges that idea with leadership that is fuelled by creativity and collaboration.

This movie is for timid, neurotic people with a huge dream that they are absolutely certain they can never achieve. I hope my audience will see themselves in the hopeful and hapless lead character, and feel the excitement of their own untested dreams; the lure of unknown adventure and the endless potential within them. I’d love the audience to leave the theater awake and glowing with a reignited connection to their own powerful destiny.

The magic hour is a time of transition. The beloved beauty of “magic hour” light comes from this transition into the mysterious unknowability of what might come next.