My name is Trevor Banks. Though I've only recently found the AML discussion board, It's been hard to stop reading since then. I started as an actor and have since turned to film making. I'm 26 and graduated last year from BYU with a BA in Theatre Studies. I know many of you from there. My wife and I have been married for 3 and a half years and we have a girl who is just over a year and a half now. My family and I are living in Poland (I served my mission here) where I've been able to study more about Polish national cinema history. We're here on an international film making fellowship. Its my first feature and I hope to finish this year in time for at least a few European festivals, though that may not actually happen.

I'm pretty ignorant to Mormon literature, I must admit, but I am extremely interested in and concerned about Mormon film. A friend directed me here because I just started a blog about LDS doctrine and its intersections with film form. I guess that I'm a formalist at heart and I feel that form and content are inseparable. The blog link, for those interested, is here and I've pretentiously titled it "Toward an LDS Cinema" as Grotowski has had the greatest influence on me as a thinker and practitioner of Theatre and film of any author I can think of.

Though I have a great deal of respect for what Richard Dutcher has tried to do, I am, as a rule, pretty ignorant about current Mormon specific film as I'm so far removed. As far as aesthetics, I feel that Dreyer, Bresson, Tati, Ozu, Kiarostami, Hou, and Burnett are some of the most important filmmakers that Mormon filmmakers should pay attention to. I also think that Iran and Taiwan are the centers for progressive, value-driven cinema in the world today. That's me in a nut-shell.