top of page

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 CompilationNewFest'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.”

bottom of page