Filmmaker Statement

Thanks to Reddit I discovered both the story of Waffle Home and the films of Douglas Sirk and his way of using melodrama to interrogate the audience’s biases. There was a post on r/relationship advice where a woman shared her story of her fiancé's breakdown inside of a Waffle House over unresolved family issues. For some reason I couldn't figure out, I was drawn more to her fiance's story. A few conversations and little self reflection later, more dots connected. I saw a line through characters like Travis Bickle and Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker: a masculine archetype that draws a particular person in the audience too closely to their plight. Most of the choices made in the making of Waffle Home were done in hopes of providing an opportunity for the audience to ask why we're so drawn to destructive men at the expense of nearly everyone else.