I remember being a teenager and seeing Seymour Cassel across a crowded room and being incredibly star struck, and not having the courage to say, 'Hello.'
What's interesting to me is the distinction between my old life and my present life.
I have been very influenced by the director Maurice Pialat, who I continue to be in conversation and conflict with and get inspiration from.
I got into filmmaking in order to tell very personal stories, and in this day and age, the opportunity seems all the more precious.
Most simply but profoundly, I chose to live an honest life, which I think as a gay person is not a given.
'How to Survive a Plague' is history-telling at its best. It's a film I'll show my two children, now toddlers, when they are old enough to understand. It's a movie that I cannot forget.
I grew up in the 1960s in Memphis, and my father was a member of the American Civil Liberties Union. I was born three years before Martin Luther King was killed, and I think that history of civil action was something that I had in my blood.
New York grabbed me too hard, as did adulthood.
All of my films have been autobiographical - it's all I've got to go on.
Capturing intimacy is pretty much the only thing I'm interested in. That's what excites me and what I find beautiful in movies personally - that almost obscene sense that we shouldn't be this close to these people. I find that very inviting and meaningful as an audience member.
For me, every film is actually a form of documentary.
I've always been interested in how the individual comes to know and accept him or herself, which I think has been hard for me.
As a gay person, my life has been marginalized.
As independent filmmakers, we are actually deeply dependent on each other. The Spirit Awards are a public expression of those bonds, the intricate set of relationships and histories that we filmmakers depend on to make our most personal work.
You can only begin to share life well when you think well of yourself.
My films might have been queer - because I was - but they were not gay.
Being an artist is in part an act of rupture.
I could not - and I still cannot - see a sustainable career as a filmmaker in which I focus fully on our gay stories.
Intimacy is something to be cherished, and intimacy is not something to be afraid of.
I grew up thinking there was something called 'independent film,' which I wouldn't necessarily have had access to if there wasn't Sundance.
