WORK
MR. HARRIS
Short, Drama | 8 min 47 sec | 2025
Ten years have passed since Owen has seen his former elementary school teacher, Mr. Harris. When Owen shows up at Mr. Harris's house to talk, it's at first unclear why he wants to see him -- until Owen begins to ask him about sexual abuse that he experienced from Mr. Harris ten years prior. The two of them have a tense, emotional conversation about the relationship they once shared, which Owen believed at the time to have been romantic and meaningful. Even as Owen confronts Mr. Harris as an adult, we can see that he still lives in denial about the full extent of the dark reality of what transpired between the two of them. It is a film about trauma and confronting your past.
WRITER, DIRECTOR, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER Max Luque
PRODUCERS Kacy Boccumini and Felix Mack
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY Donovan J. Gardener
COMPOSER Pat Shafer
EDITOR Kliff Svatos
SOUND DESIGN Lauren Klein
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STARRING Jaret Sacrey and Wes Spaulding​
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MR. HARRIS was a selection in the Long Beach Underground Film Festival (July 2025), Silicon Beach Film Festival (September 2025), ReadingFilmFest (October 2025), Culver City Film Festival (December 2025), and Idyllwild International Festival of Cinema (March 2026).
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For its selection in the Idyllwild International Festival of Cinema, MR. HARRIS was been nominated in the Shorts category for four awards: Best Director (Max Luque), Best Actor (Jaret Sacrey), Best Screenplay (Max Luque), and Best Score (Pat Shafer). It won the Vanguard Award for Best Score in the festival.
WATCH
Short, Drama | 16 min 24 sec | 2026
When Charlie comes home to his small town for the summer after his first year of college, he feels bored and aimless, lost in the shuffle of his parents' social lives and plans. He develops a strange and sudden connection with Jonathan, his middle-aged, married across the street neighbor. The two of them watch each other from across the street over the course of many days until one afternoon, Charlie crosses the street and walks into Jonathan's yard to offer him guitar lessons. What starts as guitar lessons very quickly turns into a sexual encounter that Charlie didn't quite bargain for, and he spends the rest of the afternoon feeling uncomfortable and awkward, unsure of how to leave, yet somehow still wanting to stay. The film explores themes of repressed desires and suburban angst.
WRITER, DIRECTOR, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER Max Luque
PRODUCER Paola Piccioli
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY Brook Lee Karner
PRODUCTION DESIGN Zoe Mathewson
COMPOSER, SOUND DESIGN Lauren Klein
EDITOR Salvatore Sclafani
COLORIST Marlange Piard
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STARRING Jacob Cherry and Daniel Rhyder
Still from Beautiful Boy (2018)
COMING HOME
Feature, Drama | Shooting in 2027
COMING HOME is a drama feature film that I plan to shoot in Sonoma County in summer 2027.