Director’s Statement

When I was in college, The Royal Tenenbaums had just come out, and I saw it 3-4 times in the theater. Almost twenty-five years later, I still think a lot about the scene where Gwyneth Paltrow tells Owen Wilson that he is specifically “not a genius”.

When I got to Berklee as a student, I found myself amongst the likes of Esperanza Spalding and Hiromi Uehara, whose talent was already so immense and undeniable that it seemed otherworldly. I knew immediately that I was “not a genius” on the guitar.

Nevertheless, I loved the world I was in: densely packed with people from all over the globe, passionately pursuing all kinds of art on their own terms. A place so compelling that I knew some who agreed to post-graduation green card marriages in order to stay in the country (I was even asked once, and…it would not have ended well).

So, The Underground Pieces is directly personal and deeply felt. It’s about growing up and discovering the hard way that the world sorts itself however it sees fit; your love for someone may never be returned, and your passion for something will not equal talent or success. And while not overtly political, it’s also about - in this moment more than ever - who gets to be anointed an American, and why?