OATH

WRITER/DIRECTOR

Facing their impending separation, two boys attempt to seal their friendship with a blood oath that neither of them may be prepared to take.

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Oath is one small drop in the enormous well of coming-of-age films, but I’ve always admired the genre’s true universality: we all grow up, and the moments that make us who we are look vastly different from person to person. For this story, I loved the idea of watching two characters calmly try to figure out how to accomplish a bizarre and dangerous task with the combination of recklessness and sincerity that comes with adolescence. The blood oath is more than a little childish and ridiculous, but it’s steeped in the mature recognition that the present moment doesn’t last forever. This was one of the last projects I made in film school, and it became a goodbye to the people I’d worked with and grown to love over four years, which gave it a personal resonance I never expected when I first wrote it.

Recipient of a Media Arts Grant from the Northwestern University Department of Radio/TV/Film.

Set photography by Katie Adler. Cinematography by Anderson Collins.