The Film

Ex Disposer follows Andy, the destructively neurotic former drummer for New Jersey hardcore outfit Disposer, who discovers his old band is returning home after a cross-country tour.

Nostalgic for his days behind the kit, Andy attempts to reunite with his bandmates, but first, he must confront the bad blood that was shed during his split from the group.

Ex Disposer – ELECTRONIC PRESS KIT

Director’s Statement


Roll1_437spitler-R1-14-11AEx Disposer is a passion project of mine, five years in the making. It’s my most ambitious short film, conceived as both a creative calling card and a personal statement, and influenced by character-driven and slow-burning films in the styles of Paul Schrader, Mike Leigh, Wong Kar Wai, and Lynne Ramsay.

I pride myself on making deeply personal films. All of my films deal, directly or indirectly, with my experience living with clinical depression and anxiety. This is especially true in the case of Ex Disposer, a version of which I began writing in 2012 after a two-week stay in a mental hospital. The script is a detailed psychological profile of a character, based heavily on myself, living with social avoidance and generalized anxiety. The film’s timeline is split between past and the present to address the long and short-term impact of these mental illnesses. The film also aims to demystify the ‘tortured artist’ trope, depicting a more toxic relationship between mental illness and creative vitality, one that is more often ruinous than fruitful.

Cheers,

Daniel Ferrer

Writer/Director of Ex Disposer

Want to meet the entire team? Click here. 

Producer’s Statement

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Ex Disposer is a gift.

Daniel and I met during an Experimental Film course we took together, where we bonded over Adam Curtis films. Daniel’s experimental films reflected his time during hospitalization and the ways he tried to cope with the white noise of sitcoms to ease him. His insight intrigued me, but his script for Ex Disposer got me there.

At the time I first read Ex Disposer, my day gig was at a moderate sized independent film company, where my job consisted of covering scripts by people with IMDb credits and agents. Let me tell you – Daniel’s personal story stood out and beyond everything I read for work. It’s the way Ex Disposer is crafted that gives it merit – otherwise, this could be just another story of an angry white boy. Andy is the everyman who is more than his mental illness. He’s in need of empathy, from his friends and from himself, regarding his heightened anxiety. Daniel’s craft gives young men like Andy hope – for help from the shackles of toxic masculinity, from the stigma of mental illness, and for the gift of empathy to yourself.

Best to you,

Amelia Spitler

Producer of Ex Disposer

Want to meet the entire team? Click here.