Farewell Darkness began over breakfast at Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank California in 2004. Roy Maurer, a friend of mine from film school and marine veteran had been living in Los Angeles at this point for a few years after graduation and had been attempting to break into the film industry as a screenwriter with minimal success at this point.

He told me about a story he was working on about a Iraq war veteran who was out for revenge against his marine recruiter. I liked his take on the revenge story, and I suggested that instead of the hero out to kill his recruiter, perhaps his victim be someone more personal maybe his father. Roy liked my suggestion and said he’d use it. I then proclaimed that if he wrote the script I’d make it since I had yet to do a feature film, and off we went.

Three and a half years later we found ourselves on set in Chicago filming the climax of the film, Roy had flown in to be part of the last day of principal photography and join us for the wrap party which was sure to be a rowdy affair.

And as we watch Keith Compton perform his final scene where he finally confronts his father it was clear to us we had created something very personal and what we later found when we showed the film to audiences that the movie spoke to a moment in history for the country, when we found ourselves in a strange limbo where we all knew that a crime had been committed by the United States and we like Michael our main character, we were the abused orphan without a father to guide us instead a tyrant who seems to destroy everything he touches.