I grew up in a small Texas town that revolved around church and high school football. It was a good place to grow up, but I always felt slightly out of step with my surroundings. Films became my window to the wider world. I loved seeing how people lived outside of Bell County. As a teenager, I began renting whatever was in the small foreign film section at the 7-Eleven around the corner - Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Dogs in Space, A Room With a View, The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Cinema Paradiso. I was drawn to the subtlety, the seriousness, and the emotional realism of the characters. They felt closer to real life than anything I saw in popular American films.

I absorbed every detail, but it wasn’t until a film class at the University of Texas that I understood how deliberate those details were, how gesture, framing and rhythm carry meaning. That realization changed how I see movies. It also shaped how I work today. I’m drawn to stories that resonate quietly but deeply, stories that honour human complexity and emotional truth. Whether I’m writing or translating scripts, my focus is always the same: helping stories connect across cultures and across audiences.