WRITER-DIRECTOR
Brent Joseph is an award-winning writer & director. His most recent film, Beirut on the Bayou, tells the story of his Lebanese family who worked as peddlers in South Louisiana’s Cajun communities during the early 20th century. In Holdout and A Loud Color, Brent created two unique portraits of his hometown of New Orleans as residents grappled with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
His fiction work includes, Bullfrogs, a transgressive re-telling of the damsel-in-distress story, filmed on 16mm black & white in the Louisiana swamp. Mirza the Miraculous, a sci-fi film shot in the desert mountains of West Texas, incorporates kaleidoscopic lo-fi-visuals and an analog electronic score by Quintron. Brent's films have screened at numerous festivals, museums and universities from Los Angeles to Paris including: AFI, Full Frame, Rooftop Films, NewFest, Slamdance and the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University.
DOCUMENTARIES
BEIRUT ON THE BAYOU
Documentary
Producer, Director
Lebanese author, Raif Shwayri, travels to Louisiana to trace the life of his grandfather who worked as a peddler serving the Cajuns on Bayou Lafourche in the early 20th century.
Based on the book of the same title by Raif Shwayri
Original Arabic music by Brian Prunka
HOLDOUT
Writer, Director
Set against the stark and surreal landscape of a desolate New Orleans, Holdout is a portrait of a man who refused to leave his home before or after Hurricane Katrina in order to care for his eighteen pets.
Footage was used in Spike Lee's When the Levees Broke and Court 13's Here and Now series for Time Magazine.
Included in: The Scream: Slamdance Short Film Compilation & NewFest's 20th Anniversary Shorts
Winner: Best Short Documentary, Arizona Film Festival
A LOUD COLOR
Writer, Director
While sorting through the debris of the African American community center he opened one month before it was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, 72-year-old Louis Harding talks about history and heroes and why he can't give up on his lifelong dream.
Songs by Champion Jack Dupree
Produced by NOVAC
Distributed by Media That Matters
FICTION & EXPERIMENTAL
BULLFROGS (excerpt)
Fiction
Writer, Director
A transgressive re-telling of the damsel-in-distress story shot in 16mm black and white, deep in the Louisiana swamp.
Starring Paul Soileau AKA "Christeene" & Llewyn Máire
Music by Curtis Heath
CREATURES OF THE INTERSTATE
Audio Non-Fiction
Writer, Producer
An anecdote about meeting a retired Texas oil man drinking and gambling his way home to Houston. This true story takes place in the wake of the 2016 presidential election and paints a picture of an anxious gridlocked country as seen from the bumpy roads and polluted air of West Louisiana.
MIRZA THE MIRACULOUS
Writer, Director
An experimental short film incorporating abstract art, dustbuster spaceships, gibberish voices, remnants of Mardi Gras costumes and analog electronic music. This kaleidoscopic movie was originally shot on the Texas-Mexican border in 1999, but was abandoned due to technical difficulties. The project was revived 15 years later by a successful Kickstarter fund-raising campaign.
Starring Paul Soileau (aka Christeene)
Artwork by Co-Star Iva Gueorguieva
Music by Quintron
Soundtrack available on Apple Music
Vinyl available through Ameoba Music
DANNY'S SONG
Mash-up
Director, Editor
A VHS mash-up of Stanley Kubrick's film of Stephen King's book The Shining cut to Sonic Youth's cover of the Carpenters' version of the Leon Russell–Bonnie Bramlett song “Superstar.”