I edited a new trailer for my 2002 first feature film Soak. My friend Tom had never performed in a film before but he wanted to help me. I always prefer to work with non-professionals actors, or people that have never acted before. It helps that my film crew is so tiny—in this film it was mostly me and the camera and the performer— that it allows for a certain tone to blossom. No deadline, no money, no worry. We were free.

It premiered at the 2002 Chicago Underground Film Festival and I after I didn’t submit it to … Read the rest

I set up a showcase page on Vimeo and added some recent work and older films, including my first documentary Nice Bombs about my trip back to Iraq in 2004. Click here https://vimeo.com/showcase/usama

As I reflect back I realize I don’t fully understand this life and reality. But I’m trying to let go of worry, let go of bitterness, let go of negative patterns, and to embrace wonder, kindness, laughter and compassion. I think there is something profound and also absurd about being human. I’m content with this beauty and chaos swirling in me. I used to think I needed so much, and I realize that I don’t need much, and I love being alone. But I am spending more time with my daughter—trying to spend more time in the forests and … Read the rest

Check out the Chicago Underground Film Festival trailer I directed with Usilia Warood and cinematography by Ben Hernstrom.

If you enjoy my films please consider purchasing my latest zine Boy from War. These are selections from my art journals when I was 18 years old and full of passion and angst. I was a romantic weird guy, trying to figure out my life by working out my stuff in drawings and words.

30 years later I decided to publish this embarrassing work as a peak into my headspace as a young man.

I think of this as a type of time-machine that can fuse my past and present into something new.

This is a hardcover zine with 80 … Read the rest

Rare polaroid (my mom found) of our house in Basra, Iraq after several bombings in 1982.