An expert storyteller with an honest and richly detailed visual style, Joe’s film and commercial work breathe beauty and texture into the everyday world. Forming a personal connection to each project, he is able to create a cinematic journey that both entertains and touches the heart.
On his directorial style, Ben Affleck noted, “Joe understands that actors are performing when they’re not saying lines… he has a really sophisticated understanding of moving the camera.” Joe refined this approach on HBO’s Project Greenlight with his Kafkaesque thriller “Asylum” – a highly acclaimed short and runner-up series winner. But his film roots reach back further, with the award winning short “The Third Rail”, a Cannes Festival Kodak Selection that upon its release in Japan topped downloads of 2.5 million.
Features followed. “Already Dead,” a suspense thriller for Sony Pictures starring Academy Award winner Christopher Plummer. And “Under New Management”, a crime comedy with Emmy nominated Chris Diamantopoulos, voted #1 by viewers after its Showtime premier. Woody Allen praised the film as, “funny, touching… well directed and beautifully shot,” and Martin Scorsese observed, “It reminds me of that sub-genre of films in the 1940s at Warner Brother’s: the comic-gangster film.”
With Joe’s directorial career having begun at one of the world’s largest ad agencies, BBDO, he maintained a parallel course in advertising. Launching his own thriving commercial production company, he has worked with such brands as Home Depot, Craftsman, Illinois Lottery, Corona, Hilton, Bayer, Moosehead Lager and many more. His work garnering numerous awards for excellence in commercial production, including a recent Gold Hugo for branded content.
Joe’s Entertainment Weekly MagazineShort Film Big Screen Contest winner “Vows” was viewed over 2 million times in Loews Theatres across the country, and his recent parenting slice-of-life short “The Talk” met with enthusiastic praise upon its premier at Cinequest for its cinematic production and side-splitting humor. Selected as a Vimeo Staff Pick, “The Talk” soon collected over 250,000 views, with film critic Clinton Stark describing it as “clever, (bitter?) sweet, and the ultimate anti-dote for the 21st-century challenged parent.”
Joe is currently a DGA member and is repped by Allen Fischer (Artists First) for features, Tessa Films for U.S. commercials, and Wilfred Park in Canada. He lives in Chicago with his wife and 16-year-old daughter who says about her dad's work, “It’s not “Stranger Things” – but I like it!”
