Independent
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Independent *
In 2010, well before pickleball’s popularity surge, an 82-year old retired therapist, Marshall, established the first court in Los Angeles, and has been teaching the game ever since. Two of his students are middle-aged men grappling with disability. John is an award-winning Hollywood set designer – mellow, witty, and contemplative – whose career was sidelined by Parkinson’s. Norair is a former firefighter, soldier, and basketball player from Armenia. A horrific work accident left Norair a paraplegic who survived a suicide attempt to become a flute player, pool shark, world champion ping ponger, and optimist. Both men have bonded with Marshall, the gregarious local ‘godfather’ to pickleball, and the loving husband and carer of his ailing wife.
The Pickleball Project is an intimate, character driven film, following Marshall, Norair, and John as they navigate the worries and wonders of their everyday life on and off the court. The film delves into the magic of what these men find in playing pickleball, and why that matters.
Project slated for a 2025 release.
Untitled Pickleball Project
As a 90-year-old professor encourages her students to think critically and question deeply in an increasingly contentious world, she too considers her own past by revisiting an unfinished book project — igniting a reflection on a lifetime of love, loss, and resilience. This poetic character study unfolds in a dreamlike fashion, underscoring the precious power of dialogue and empathy, urging us to consider the threads of humanity that bind us across time and space.
In production.
Untitled Ann Kerr Project
That Change I Have Seen
A blunt reality emerged early on in the coronavirus pandemic — certain communities were hit particularly hard. Little Pakistan in Central Brooklyn is one of them. It is here that we meet Nowshin Ali and Anurag Shrivastava, restaurateurs of a delicious local Indian spot and co-founders of a nonprofit that supports low-income, immigrant families. That Change I Have Seen is a meditation on the power of crises to lay bare our deepest inequalities, and reveal our greatest heroes.
Made in association with The New School © 2021
Best Short Documentary and Audience Award — Cannes Short Film Festival 2021 | Official Selection — DOC NYC, Dam Short Film Festival, Social Impact Film Festival, Oregon Documentary Film Festival, LA Independent Women Film Awards, among others.