CO-DIRECTOR/CO-WRITER

As a filmmaker, the stories I find that shake my perspective on the world mandate my exploration of it within the medium.

This time, the story found me.

A resident of Austin for years, I moved to the Eastside excited to live in THE new Austin neighborhood sold to me by our current cultural zeitgeist. Instagram posts showed places bursting at the seams with people. Tiktoks praised the area for its "old school", “low-key” vibes. When I got here, I saw a different story.

Neighborhood streets had one foot in the past and one in the future. Long time haunts were torn down overnight and replaced by candy coated, influencer-ready establishments. East Austinites fighting for the place they've called home for generations quickly found themselves displaced by transplants plugging their ears.

And amidst all the turmoil, the embodiment of this story strolled past me through the Eastside streets: a Cowboy, straddled atop his mare, moving through his neighborhood, a conqueror of his home.

Hi, How Are You belongs to the East Side. We invite the community to help craft this timely story asking a simple question at its core: Who is Austin for now?

CO-DIRECTOR/CO-WRITER

Though I grew up in Brady, TX, Austin has always been my home. It's where I was born. It's where I attended college. It's where my parents fell in love.

This city, specifically the East side, was always a slice of something I never got in my small rural town.

As a child, visiting my father's home in East Austin was a unique experience for me. The black and brown faces that filled the streets and whose names were across several businesses was extremely formative.

Growing up in rural Texas, I was used to seeing people in positions of success, power, and frankly, happiness, as white people. My knowledge of the minority experience in Brady was that of suffering and strife.

But that was never the case on the East side of Austin. Though the homes were humble and the businesses were small, the strength of the community was palpable. I grew to cherish East Austin, becoming my home away from home. My oasis of belonging in the desert of prejudice.

Over time, that oasis has run dry.

As affluence continues to flow into Austin, the city has changed drastically. Most notably the East side. Family owned businesses are being replaced with corporate franchises and humble homes flipped into high dollar real estate. My home away from home no longer feels like a home.

Hi How Are You is a film about a community that is fading and the clash that comes with a new populace replacing it. My goal with this film is to capture the dying breath of a neighborhood I no longer recognize.

PRODUCER

A few years back, I made the decision to move to Los Angeles and work in Hollywood so that I might learn a thing or two and bring it back home to the boys in Austin. I’m delighted that Hi, How Are You has given me opportunity do so, so soon.

I'm originally from Round Rock, which I adore, but the suburbs can be a marginalizing place. I grew up not knowing many folks like me. At college, in Austin, I grew such that I would connect with people better, but I still did not see myself.

I don't regret all that much in my life, but I do wonder why I didn't know the East Side. Was I lacking curiosity? The will to explore? Or was it that I didn't know what I didn't know — and what there was to know, was going away? I don't know.

But I know the East Side now. And I'm proud to produce from the margins for the margins. A story about a home I didn't know, but will never forget, no matter what change may come.

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY

Gentrification or Modernization. Marginalization or Progress. Different perspectives for what is essentially just change.

If I could define a particular portion of my life with a single word, it'd be contrast. I hail from a low income family, who, by either smart decisions or luck, purchased a modest home built in the 50's in what is now one of the most affluent neighborhoods in Houston, TX.

Nowadays, it's an ethereal experience every time I visit my mother who still resides there. I turn into my cul-de-sac passing by designer gardens, guest houses, and terracotta roofs, and pull into the cracked, sun-bleached driveway of my childhood home.

Seeing all this, I can easily say that I feel out of place, or that I am an unwelcome presence within my neighborhood.

That would, however, be a lie, as I've never once experienced anything other than a friendly, inviting neighborhood. I lived a very sheltered childhood.

But I know that's not the case for everyone. It's just one perspective out of many.

I can imagine what it might feel like to defend your generational home against predatory economic expansion. But those assumptions would be hollow.

And therein lies the crux of why I became involved with Hi, How Are You.

I seek to understand more than the biases the media or my parents have fed me; to gain real insight from the people who are directly affected.

I became a filmmaker because it had given me a voice when I had no other option. So with Hi, How Are You, my hopes are simple: to create a project in which a community, whose plights are often exploited, invalidated, or ignored, can have a voice.