Assembling the Ensemble, My Thoughts, the World of Adam Galanis and My Process of Indie Filmmaking

Assembling My Thoughts

I had seven coffee cans with plastic yellow snap-on lids that have long discolored. For years I kept stories the way people keep journals and diaries, and the way working people sometimes must, wherever they can. Most people keep their dreams, hopes, what they see, feel, and want in their heads and then forget them. Some things I’ve written, more than I can count, are things I never want to remember, like steel melting, glass crumbling to the ground, gunshots, blood, screams and the smells, bodies hitting the pavement, the noises and sounds a mother makes when she loses a child tragically and real, just to name a few.

Those are the moments that don’t ask permission, the ones that follow you home and sit in the corner of a room long after the room is quiet, the ones you carry because you have to, because you were there, because you heard it, because you witnessed it, because it happened. I wrote images, feelings, and thoughts in the form of words on small pieces of paper, fragments of decades gone.

Now they remind me, though I’m not old yet, of what I saw and felt, of my youth, my poor judgments, my lack of clarity, my tenacity, and the vigor that I plant, incorporate, and weave into my writing and my characters. I am the same with the music I choose for my scenes, the ones I design or recreate or even have created, typically sparked by memories or words jotted down years earlier, because sound has a way of pulling an entire life back into the room in an instant, a smell, a street, a face, a season, a mistake, a mercy.

During COVID, I pulled a little treatment from my coffee can that held such things, and one paper, a scrap really, stuck out at me. It read Eve and Adam, and I stood there with it the way a man stands with a verdict in his hand before he even knows what he is guilty of.

Eve was written in black, and I could see the pen giving up as the last of the ink trailed off like breath. Then Adam came in red, and I remembered that transparent Bic, almost never used, still full of ink. I remembered the first time I bought a red pen, that red pen, and thought only teachers had use for that color, because the F grades and the other less complimentary things they wrote about me to my parents always came in red, like a fresh wound each time, one that my young mind thought would never close. Maybe buying that pen was me taking back what was done to me, turning the color from accusation into choice, and later realizing black ink served the same purpose just as well, because the truth does not depend on the color that delivers it.

To me, somehow the yellow lid signified caution, slow down, because entering such a can, filled with mixed memories, might hurt somehow. And it did. I put the scrap of paper back, but this time I laid it on top of the yellow lid, because it did not feel, nor did I sense, like caution or a signal to slow down. I did not feel the need to sequester it back inside the can. I closed the coffee can like I was setting bait for my own mind, like I was asking it to speak without pretending I didn’t want to hear it. And in that silence, unwittingly, I dared it to speak to me. It never did. Or perhaps it did, though never in the way I had assumed.

The less I thought about it and moved on, the more the thoughts, images, and sounds filled my head and crept into my mind. Thoughts filled my head, extremely detailed and vivid, imagination drawn from factual and life experience, personas, and conversations. Yes, they were multiplying, in fact getting louder, especially in my sleep.

In my dream state, I started hearing conversations, intimate ones, private ones, painful ones, sardonically funny ones, and that one conversation turned into a non-cacophony of scenes, all frame by frame, as if I was flipping a View-Master of my youth.

In the quiet of that time, when the world had slowed down and the air felt strange and the days blurred together, it was like the can opened something in me that was not going to be put back neatly, not this time. So, there was only one thing to do. I grabbed that scrap of paper, which was in the exact spot I had rested it, and I expanded the story and started to write.

It became the feature film Once a Week for Life saga, created, written, directed, narrated, and produced by me, George Zouvelos, together with the help of my beautiful ensemble of amazingly gifted creatives.

We filmed it, but I never stopped thinking and writing, not during production, not during editing, not even as of today. Before scenes were filmed I knew more or less how they wil be edited. On how we would intercut other scenes not yet filmed and how the scene would be colored etc.

It started as a script of around two hundred pages, taken from a fourteen-hundred-page manuscript I had authored and eventually finished. Or so I thought. You know how that goes. You believe you’ve reached the end, that you’ve said what needed to be said, but the story keeps moving inside you. It shifts. It breathes. It refuses to stay closed.

Assembling World and Stories of Adam Galanis

I don’t tap it out like a blueprint. I chase it until it tells the truth.

And truth doesn’t come politely. Truth comes in waves. It comes when you’re tired. It comes when you’re alone with the blinking cursor and the room is too quiet, and the world outside is sick, and you can feel your own pulse like a metronome. The truth sometimes can be so overwhelming that the emotions flood from soul, heart, through mind, to my fingertips, and I write. It is what it is.I never thought, and I don’t think, it’s anything special. It just is how I am, perfectly imperfect, like my writing, like my filming, like my acting, and as I am, fallible. I try to be the best possible person I can be, but even then, I stumble and fall and pray for the grace to stand and do better. Every day of my life.

Yes. I had seven coffee cans with plastic yellow snap-on lids that have long discolored. I used to write on napkins, on ambulance call reports, on work orders from the jobs that I had, on greasy things that have long turned moldy. Some of those notes sat so long they went moldy, then yellow, then green to brown to black from dirt, time, and life, the same way my white belt became black when I trained in Shotokan karate on Steinway Street in Astoria when I was younger, many years ago.

Little notes which ended up being stories, and one of them as I said is, Once a Week for Life, Adam and Eve, and some other little things.

The littlest things make the biggest difference.

During COVID, I pulled a little treatment from my coffee can and one paper, a scrap really, stuck out at me. It was Adam and Eve. A thought filled my head, so I expanded the story and started to write.

Assembling the Ensemble

Here it is refined, elevated, and kept in paragraph form, preserving your voice, rhythm, and interior process:

I will discuss in this section some, though not all, of the actors who touched our film so deeply with their performances. But first, it is important to understand that as I was writing, I was already assembling them. Casting did not begin after the script was finished. It began in the writing itself. As I typed, I would close my eyes and picture certain actors, not all of them, but specific ones, speaking the words I was putting on the page. I saw them in the scenarios I was constructing, inside the story arcs I was shaping. I could hear the cadence of their voices. I could sense how they would pause, how they would breathe, how they would look at another character before responding. I even heard the music that would sit beneath the scene, and I wrote that down as well.

Without consciously planning it, as I continued refining the script, the characters began to move with their faces. I could see their mouths forming the dialogue. I could hear their voices in my head with clarity. In my mind’s eye, the scenes were not static words on a page but lived moments already unfolding. The film was assembling itself internally long before a camera was ever turned on.

I understand the practical truth. The higher ranking and more recognizable the actor, the easier it is to monetize your project and get others to invest or contribute. But I don’t look for the most notable or recognizable actor. What I do is assemble the ensemble with actors to fit the characters, even the one that I play, Adam Galanis. More importantly, the character of someone like Captain Zeke Levy, who is, for all intents and purposes, the protagonist of the film.

I needed somebody to be a certain someone, like an Inspector Gordon in Batman, like a Raymond “Red” Reddington from The Blacklist. Someone who can have range and portray, in silence, paragraphs-worth of dialogue and emotion without even needing to utter a word. And Dikran Tulaine was that person. I met Dikran by chance when I was brought on as an Assistant Director of an Off-Broadway play, An Evening with Onassis, starring Anthony Skordi, a man I used to call a friend. Now Dikran remains, and we are close compatriots on a mission to bring out the truth in every scene.

It’s important to note this film was self-funded, mostly. My philosophy is, if you’re not willing to cast yourself in the roles that you want to be cast in, why should anybody else cast you in their film? So, I cast myself as Adam since I couldn’t find somebody who can act like I can, naturally, organically, and not pretentiously. I don’t act like Adam Galanis. I am me, who is Adam Galanis when I’m acting.

The choice for Eve was easy. I’ve worked with her in the past. She has a genuine smile, a kind-hearted soul, super sensitive, emotional, with tremendous acting prowess. Diana Durango is the female lead in our film saga. Diana has been a close and trusted advisor, and writing her role was easy, knowing Diana and knowing what she can do in front of a camera that absolutely loves her.

The choice for the mob capo was also very interesting because I had two people in mind. One was Armen Garo. He has a unique face that I like to have in my films, at least when I write them. Through my friend Arthur Hiou, I spoke to John Fiore, and John Fiore got me to Armen. The rest is history.

Discussing the dialogue in the script with Armen, the choice was crystal clear.

Another one of my favorites is Robert Funaro. I loved him from the time I was younger. I was able to get Artie Pasquale, Tony Darrow, and, through Funaro’s influence, Paul Borghese. Bruce “Busta” Soscia was well known. Bruce is the epitome of a bad guy. Except when he smiles. That’s when you know that he’s really a good actor, because he’s not acting when he laughs. He’s acting when he’s not.

I knew Al Sapienza but had lost his number. And then Al came back into the fold, and he looked at me and he goes, “That was good, kid. But now, imagine a strung-out and worn younger Mickey Rourke, and let’s do it again.”

For a while there, I needed to find the right Trixie. I needed somebody who had pizzazz, but was restrained, someone that you can see in her eyes, pain and emotion. And I was able to speak to Oksana Lada. Tony Soprano’s mistress seduced the role of Trixie by her talented and genuine acting.

At the end of the day, I spoke with actor Kevin Chapman, who was not available during our film shoot, and he had only one person he really thought could play Crazy Eddie McDonough, and that was the actor, Owen Burke. Owen Burke is a young actor, bright red hair, light eyes, a quiet smile, and you never know what he’s thinking. I am the same way, but we have figured each other out.

Another gift came through Diana Durango. She introduced me to Daniel Roebuck, and he was perfect to play her father. I saw Daniel many years ago when he played opposite Harrison Ford in The Fugitive. He was simply a joy to work with, more like an older brother.

John Kapelos, I call him Theo (Uncle) John, is a mentor. Once he read my script, where he plays opposite me as my father, Theo Galanis, he said to me in Greek, my boy, there is a treasure trove of dialogue here. Who writes like this? And through his mentorship, I was able to streamline some of the scenes that he and I were in. I speak with him often. He was my pleasure to have in our film.

When I was younger, I was an intern with Howard Stern for a bit. And I met a guy who I thought was hilarious. I was listening to him for years since he was on AM with Howard Stern. His name was Jackie, the Joke Man, and Diana had his number and he came onboard. Jackie is always a pip.

Jessica Johnson from Nebraska. Jessica and I worked opposite Tom Sizemore in a film that never went anywhere because there’s a lot of unscrupulous operators in this business who like to take advantage of upcoming actors, hopefuls, and people who are looking for stardom. Jessica is truly a gifted performer and a gentle lady, and it’s my honor to call her a friend.

Same as a guy who answered a casting call to play Detective Carlos Rodriguez, Brian Sterling Chan. Brian has shown his support. A volunteer firefighter with a beautiful wife and two children. The whole family’s into acting now thanks to Brian. I’m also proud to call him a friend.

Arthur Hiou, I mentioned him earlier. He’s, my compatriot. Our families are from the other side in Greece. Half of him is Spartan, half of me is Spartan. Arthur was in The Boston Strangler, and he acted opposite Keira Knightley. I’m certain he gave an outstanding performance because he’s a trained actor, and he proved as one in Once a Week for Life. When his scene was cut in Strangler, I knew he was disappointed and, in my heart of hearts, I was heartbroken for him too.

And my buddy Stew Replogle belongs here too. A gifted actor, an amazing writer, and a decent human being. I was introduced to him through my friend Arthur up in Massachusetts. Stew is a true gift.

I cast John Kapelos as my father. Dikran Tulaine as my trusted friend and confidant. Armen Garo as my arch nemesis, with Robert Funaro as his second in command. I cast Jimmy Shirts as Carlo Costalazzo’s lackey. Stew Replogle as the Irish underboss tied to the Westies out of Rhode Island and Boston, and Owen Burke as the mob boss’s son. For Adam Galanis’s love interest, I went with someone unexpected for me personally, but undeniably beautiful and wildly gifted, Diana Durango.

For the corrupt police chief, I wanted condescending, wise guy energy that still felt raw, real, and riveting, and I found that in John Fiore. I paired him with Thomas Moynihan as his number two. The mob table was surrounded by absolute pros: Tony Darrow, Artie Pasquale, Lou Martini, Paul Borghese, John Bianco. Even the supporting characters were hand selected: Sophia Mavronas, Arthur Hiou, Vigil Bose, and Jessica J. Johnson. Actor Vigil Bose as he reminded me of a decent Mayor of Indian descent and is a true gentleman in real life. Roxanne Alese as my wife, and Marcia Pizzo opposite Diana Durango.

I brought in Anthony Petrano as a trusted detective, someone I worked with on The Blacklist. I cast Al Sapienza as our Greek Orthodox priest, confident, a little mobbed up looking, but firm and fair, the hardest working man in Hollywood. And I cast Oksana Lada as my seductive childhood sweetheart turned lady of the night, turned madam, Tony Soprano’s mistress from The Sopranos.

The bar had what we called the support group of Eves. They were rooted in the most provincial and fundamental levels of New York City. Not an idea of community, but the real thing. Staten Island. Brooklyn. Queens. The Bronx. Manhattan. Long Island. They carried those places in their posture and in their speech. The working neighborhoods. The stoops and kitchens and corner conversations that form people before they ever know they are being formed.

They represented community the way working people understand it. Not sentimental. Not theatrical. Earned. Lived through. The choice for them was clear from the beginning. Real people with real talking. Organic acting. Nothing polished, nothing pretentious. They were not performing where they came from. They came from there.

Debby Mary Singer, Lori Cortese-Buckheit, Marilyn Forward, and Maryanne Ruggerio.

There was atmosphere when they entered a room. You felt history in the air. Old arguments. Old loyalties. The weight of families and borough lines that never really disappear. They did not announce themselves. They settled into the space the way memory settles into a building.

And behind the bar there had to be someone who belonged just as deeply. A neighborhood man. A bit of a smart aleck. Provincial without apology. A retired civil servant who bought the bar from an owner who had finally had enough and stepped away or merely was running out of life’s runway. A man who now stands behind it as if it were both inheritance and responsibility.

That was William Petrano. His Frankie.

He does not act like he owns the room. He simply inhabits it. He pours drinks like he has seen everything already and is not surprised by what comes next. The bar is not a stage for him. It is ground he stands on.

SCRIPT SECRECY, STORYLINE INTEGRITY, CHARACTER ARC ACCURACY AND STORYLINES

Script secrecy, storyline integrity, character arc accuracy, and character truth were not stylistic choices. They were structural necessities. Nobody had the full script because nobody in life has the full script. Each actor was responsible only for the truth of the moment placed in front of them. They understood their motivation, their history, their emotional temperature, but not the total consequence of their actions once the story converged. That was intentional. Arc accuracy depends on ignorance as much as knowledge. If a performer anticipates the future of a character, the present becomes dishonest. The reaction becomes calculated. The moment loses its breath.

Actors needed to actively listen to one another as they would in the real world, in an actual conversation. This was essential. No anticipation. No performing the next beat before it arrived. The response had to be discovered in the moment. That kind of listening creates truth. It creates hesitation, interruption, silence, and those small human adjustments that cannot be manufactured. It was equally important for me, as director, to permit the scenes to breathe, to allow space, to resist the urge to rush toward completion. Even during brief rehearsals, I kept the camera rolling at times, because often the most honest exchanges occur before actors believe the scene has officially begun. Those moments carry something unguarded, something alive.

Storyline integrity demanded restraint. The narrative could not bend for convenience or spectacle. It had to follow the internal logic of the characters, even when that logic led somewhere uncomfortable. Character truth meant allowing people to contradict themselves, to falter, to hesitate, to reveal themselves slowly. No one was permitted to perform the outcome. They had to live the scene.

Absolutely nobody knew the ending except at the moment I chose to film it, quietly, with only those required present, the actors bound to that final movement, the editor, the colorist, the sound master, the cinematographer, the director of photography. They witnessed the mechanics of it, but the meaning, the weight beneath it, the reckoning it carried, that was not technical. That was spiritual.

Even today, people do not know how the story truly ends, not really. Even during the screening, the entire truth was not laid bare. Not completely. Some endings are not revealed in a frame. They unfold afterward, in silence, when the viewer is alone with what they have seen. An ending is not a period. It is a mirror, and not everyone is ready to look.

The Protagonist, The Antagonist and the Female Lead Take On OWFL

"After viewing a sampling of George Zouvelos‘s work product, I knew his dedication to quality filmmaking and storytelling was sincere. My decision was easy. Once A Week For Life (OWFL). The title alone was intriguing and George's writing and story, even more so! A chance for me to work on OWFL with actors I had truly admired for over 30 years!! I had to get on board!"  -- Armen Garo, Carlo Castellazzo, (lead antagonist)

"Most of my work was in theater, for years, with the odd tv or film role. Theater was my preference, because of the depth, study and rehearsal necessary, the collaboration. In Once A Week For Life George Zouvelos created a working world like that. It was unique and amazing. And we have more to do and I am excited to keep performing the work with George as long as he writes and directs same." Dikran Tulaine, Captain Zeke Levy, (Protagonist)

"George Zouvelos has penned a commendable and delicate character study, capturing a powerful intersection of female strength and vulnerability that was evident from the very first page of the script that I read. It was an absolute thrill to join George and a prestigious cast of 30-year industry veterans to help realize a story written with such depth and heart. This project represents a beautiful synergy of seasoned talent and the visionary writing , productions, and direction George brought to the page and screen.” Diana Valero Durango, Eve Fucondo, (Female lead)

Curated, couture, calibrated and grateful

Like fine clothes made long ago that can still be worn and still hold their place now, the storytelling was traditional in its bones. It moved the way I heard my elders move when they spoke. The way neighbors leaned forward in a kitchen chair and told a story about religion, about mythology, about a family member, about history, and made you see it without ever showing you anything.

You listened with your ears, but you watched with your eyes.

Their faces shifted almost imperceptibly. Their hands marked time in the air. A pause carried weight. A glance redirected the room. Nothing was exaggerated. Nothing was wasted. And yet the story expanded. In your own mind, images appeared in full color, shaped not by them alone but by your own memory, your own experiences, your own private archive of feeling.

They gave you the outline. You supplied the world.

That is the tradition the film was built from. Film shows you something. It places the image before you and asks you to accept it. But music enters differently. Music does not force the image. It guides the interior response. It leans into what is unsaid. It frames the emotional truth beneath the dialogue and allows the viewer to complete it. The image may be given, but the meaning still belongs to the person watching.

That is why this film took three times longer to edit than it did to shoot. Because everything mattered. From the opening credits to the closing credits, nothing was accidental. Every cut was considered. Every transition measured. It was cut, woven, infused, injected, painted, and curated. Not to impress, but to align. To make sure that what was intended and what was felt could meet somewhere honest.

The final cut is not an assembly. It is a construction of atmosphere. A calibration of meaning. A deliberate shaping of how the story breathes.

Only Happy Accidents, Lots of Them, More Like God’s Intervention

We had what people would call happy accidents. We had what others might reduce to luck. But I cannot call it that. But whatever it was we had lots of it! I would be lying to myself if I did. What happened here was not luck. It was God’s intervention, and at times, His tender mercy.

We had nothing. Nothing that would suggest this could move forward. Nothing that would guarantee a single frame would be captured. Nothing that would promise distribution. Nothing that would protect us from embarrassment, failure, or obscurity. And nothing I wrote, nothing we accomplished, whether this film and its saga are judged good, fair, poor, mediocre, or great, can honestly be credited to me alone. I was only the vessel permitted to hold the words. A flawed vessel. An uncertain one. The work did not originate from pride. It came from something heavier. Something that pressed against me until I answered.

There were moments when the doors should have stayed shut. Actors who should not have returned calls. Locations that should not have opened. Funding that should not have appeared. Yet they did. Not because I demanded them. Not because I deserved them. But because something larger than my ambition allowed them to align. And with every alignment came a weight. A reminder that if this was given, then it was given for a reason, and reasons are not casual things.

I did not have a benefactor who handed me half a million dollars. I had our savings. I had small offerings from people who believed, sometimes more than I did. I had my family standing beside me even when I questioned whether I was dragging them into something reckless. I had friends, actors, crew members, people who sacrificed time and comfort for something that might never return the favor. That kind of faith is not light. It is a burden. It demands that you be worthy of it.

There were nights when I questioned whether I was being led or tested. Whether this was calling or consequence. Whether the silence from God meant approval or warning. And still we moved forward. Not boldly. Not triumphantly. But stubbornly. Prayerfully. Sometimes blindly.

Now the film is distributed. It leaves our hands and enters the judgment of strangers. And that, too, is an act of surrender. Because once it is released, it is no longer protected. It will be misunderstood by some. Ignored by others. Perhaps embraced by a few. Whatever happens, it does not belong to me anymore. It belongs to the moment God allowed it to exist.

If there were happy accidents, they were not accidents at all. They were reminders that I am not the architect. I am only the laborer permitted to work the ground.

And even that permission can be taken away.

Nobody is in this film by accident. Everybody has their part. As I expanded the scenes, these were the faces in my head as the words came onto the page. And it was genuinely thrilling to watch each actor bring their own take to the ink I put down. They gave the page what it can’t give itself: the breath behind the dialogue, the depth, the yin and the yang, the texture of how they chose to live inside each moment.

When it comes down to it, you hear the old adage, you get what you put into it. As a writer-director on a mostly self-funded film, you start with an ensemble of actors, cast, crew, people who do makeup and hair, people who serve the crafty, gaffers and grips, focus pullers and camera people, people who hold the boom mics, do the sound. All kinds of people.

When I direct, I tell my actors, we are only here in this place today, together breathing the same atmosphere, the same air, with each other’s company, only for a little while and only this one time called today. Let’s make the most of it. Let’s do this. Action.

We didn’t film for a long time, but it took us five times as long to edit, color, and sound-master once we decided what we were going to do with the film. We filmed so efficiently and cooperatively as all the actors hit it out of the ballpark and gave much more than I ever expected.

At the end of the day, you assemble an ensemble that you’ve captured for eternity on film, and you stand together, alone.

Then it’s me and my friend Bill Galatis from Massachusetts, my editor. I was fortunate enough to meet Pedro Pimentel, an amazing DP and cinematographer. And with his guidance, hard work, expertise, honesty, and dedication, we were able to appropriately color the film to make it seem exactly as each scene was intended to be seen. We had captured New York in a mason jar, which meant no matter where you turn in New York, it looks a little different, but it all looks the same. That’s how our film is. New York City, Astoria to be exact, and filmed in a neighborhood near you.

My DP, Emmy Award-winning George Giakoumis, God bless him, he tried so hard to make it to every shoot, rushing in before and after his work at CBS and on his limited days off. But as the director, I’d establish a shot list, and he would review it. Often, he’d say, “You can’t film it like that.” I used to draw diagrams and show exactly how we were going to do it, how I’d make it work, and then get us to the location to run through it. His response was always, “Fine. You’re the boss.”

Above all, George is an amazing friend and a good family man who cares about his community. I wholeheartedly thank him for all he contributed, his professionalism, patience, and personality. To this day, I can still see him shaking his head no, yet we got it all the way I said it would be, with even a few happy accidents too.

When I talk about assembling the ensemble, I also mean the sound score, gaffers, scene scripts, and camera. I mean editing. I mean the locations. I mean the music. The food, travel, lodging, and wardrobe, hair and makeup. All of it.

Every scene was carefully crafted, curated, as well as the music, which is hand-selected by me for each scene. Billy the editor was key in this craft. Some of it I composed with gifted musicians that I would hum a tune and scribble down some notes, and they would play them. I said G minor here, G major here. Oh, that’s an aria. I drove them nuts, as I did our script supervisor, who constantly gave me looks like, oh, he said a little bit he shouldn’t have said that, or he should have said this. Billy would say, “When did you record this?” I’d say, plug it in here and here. He’d reply, “But the thing is… okay, let me see.”

If my actors tell you anything, I’m a director who doesn’t yell cut easily. I’ll say, do it again. I’ll keep it moving. Say it again. And let the scene breathe. And believe it or not, we got some of the most amazing facial expressions and even a gratuitous line here and there that really was a happy accident.

One of those happy accidents are people like Ioannis Koutalis who arrived just in time. Yanni showed up with a smile and a hectic disposition, a man who is gifted, who will tell you everything he’s doing step by step, not just to show off and tell you how much he knows, but to explain in his way why things take the time they need to do things right.

Yanni always needed Snickers to fix his mood, because we always asked him to do things that somehow taxed him. Not any longer. He’s a changed man ever since him and his wife welcomed into this world a beautiful young girl. Now he has a smile on his face from morning till night. A great guy.

My acting ensemble is carefully curated, as is the music in the film, and how the editing is done with my editor, Bill Galatis, and how I choose my locations so they can capture an essence and character in non-cliché dialogue, organic performances by actors that collectively have appeared in motion pictures and television that have garnered over 179 Academy Awards, Primetime Emmys, Golden Globes, People’s Choice Awards, and yes, even two Grammys.

So, assembling an ensemble is more than just writing a script, raising a little bit of money, and showing up on set. It’s about getting a confluence of synergetic individuals who are not toxic, who are able to work together, and even when they’re not with you when you’re editing, and even when everybody leaves you when you’re trying to sell it and you’re going to film markets, like when I went out to the American Film Market out in Los Angeles recently, you still carry them with you in your mind and your heart as they were with you in battle.

Now it’s the director’s turn, the producer’s turn, to bring everything and get it to screen for the whole world to see. That’s what assembling the ensemble is. That’s what it means. It’s not just the actors, but it’s the entire team, which I led and am proud to call my friends.

I started with seven coffee cans and a line that wouldn’t die, and now that line has become finished films, and all those people, all that work, all that truth, is finally leaving the can and stepping into the light, first with select theatrical screenings up and down the East Coast in March and April, and then on April 14, 2026 it goes wide for audiences everywhere to rent or buy, launching on Apple TV, Amazon Prime Video, Google Play, Fandango at Home, DirecTV, Dish Network, Optimum Altice, RCN, and participating national cable and on-demand platforms.

You will hear it and see it, and you will tell us if we made the right choices, if you bought into my characters and story, if something in the film felt familiar to a reality you’ve known, heard, or witnessed, and whether doing your laundry or whatever else life was demanding took a back seat because you stayed, because if you stayed, then it was worth it for us.

I’m grateful to God for the gifts, not only what I got as graces, but in the graces of others and God putting them in my way or on the same path even for a little while.

Move in any direction but always move forward. If you fall, get up. Keep going. That’s what we did together as I assembled the ensemble.

Now, watch the trailer and follow the release updates here on the site and hold on to your seat.