It's hard for me to conjure up another word for Joecar Hanna's award-winning short films, DELIVER ME (2003) and TALK ME (2025), other than: masterpiece. They push the boundaries of cost, intimacy, and what the medium itself can deliver. If you're able to see them -- maybe reach out to Joecar on social media and be nice, it might work -- do so. Near the end of the episode, he gets to an important point: intimacy content still hasn't been taken over by AI.

What a unique filmmaker here today for the podcast; director/writer/actor, even willing to work blue, Joecar Hanna.

In this episode, Joecar and I discuss:

• what it's like having masterpieces of short films unavailable for viewing;
• if there's a part of filmmaking that doesn't appeal to him;
• how he got started in filmmaking and why he decided to get his MFA at NYU;
• telling "your story" if you don't have a story to tell;
• changing "find your voice" to "find your perspective";
• how to think of his last two films with similar names;
• his ability to pull off so many things with his films -- art department, makeup, intimacy coordination -- with so little money;
• the focus of his art at the intersection of intimacy and love;
• the amazing story (and Spike Lee's encouragement) about him acting in intimate scenes;
• why so many filmmakers shy away from the level of intimacy that's in his projects;
• if he's happy with NYU's focus on top festivals and his recommendations for others;
• what people are looking for in films if it's not quality?
• his next project and how people should approach film festivals.

Joecar's Indie Film Highlights: AFTER THIS DEATH (2025) dir. by Lucio Castro; DRUNKEN NOODLES (2025) dir. by Lucio Castro; THE MAN FROM EARTH (2007) dir. by Richard Schenkman

Memorable Quotes:

"And they always tell you to keep it private and to preserve the status and all this kinds of things, right? That, for a short, I sometimes wonder really if it's necessary."

"Racism in Europe -- in particular, Spain -- is completely different to how racism could be here, right? It's more invisible. It's more like little details."

"Do I need to go to film school? And the truth is I could focus while I had all the other crafts, I could focus on the last one that I needed to train, which was writing." 

"How can I tell this story and can I condense when I don't have tools or I don't have money." 

"When you're in film school and you have many people helping you, obviously they're not getting paid."

"For TALK ME, I had to go back and ask every single person I knew for the last 20 years favors."

"I really like to talk about what I call little prisons of, or cages, from people...that we like to put ourselves in."

"They have to know me and they have to know that I'm not a creepy person that is just...trying to get everyone naked."

"There's 300 people in this room seeing our butts right now." 

"When I won TIFF, no one called me next day." 

"We can't be too precious about what we have."

"Even if you go to Sundance Labs right now, you can find people struggling with financing. You better hurry."

"Good thing for now is the [AI] limitation with intimacy content is not allowing people to do that yet."

Links:

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Joecar Hanna

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