Joshua Clark creates Gravity Film Showcase to celebrate Columbus cinema

Joshua Clark uncovered a passion for filmmaking almost by accident five years ago. At the time, Clark was in the midst of a tough divorce, and the crushing weight of the split turned him toward therapy, where he finally began to confront the generational traumas that he said he had spent much of his existence pushing back beneath the surface.

“That’s just what we do. We’re an Irish family from the South Side of Columbus. Here’s some cocaine, here’s some whiskey. Now shut the fuck up and figure it out,” Clark said in a mid-August interview at Upper Cup on Parsons. “But therapy saved my life. And in that process, I had that aha moment where I wanted to talk to the men in my family. There was always this general malaise among the men in my family, where too many of them got swallowed up in their own existence. And in that process, I could see they turned to alcohol or drugs or violence, and that permeated a lot of things.”

Though he had zero film experience, Clark set out to capture these conversations, a couple of which came to form the backbone of his documentary “Cycle Breakers.” Going in, Clark intended to make a film that explored how motorcycle riding existed as a coping mechanism both within his bloodline and in the culture at large. “And then all of a sudden the men in my family started opening up, and we started talking about the things we hadn’t talked about for generations,” said Clark, who allowed the film to mutate and gradually take on more deeply personal connotations. “I had two uncles who went to mental institutions, and I had no idea. … And everyone did the best with what they had, but there was just this generational pain. … And we finally got to talk about it.”

That Clark would turn to his family as a source of inspiration for storytelling shouldn’t surprise. On one side of the family, he’s a descendant of Abraham Clark, who signed the Declaration of Independence. And on the other side, he said he’s related to one of the first women to die by electric chair and is second cousin to Charles Manson. “So, we pull from a lot of different wells,” Clark said, and laughed.

In the process of making the documentary and unpacking generations of internalized family trauma, Clark learned he also had a knack for production work. And as he wrapped initial filming, he began to accumulate new projects, launching his production company, GYMFEA Productions, right at the onset of Covid. In the years since, Clark has continued to develop and pursue new concepts – he’s currently juggling a handful of higher-profile projects for both film and TV – while also turning his focus toward the Columbus film scene at large.

“I really want people outside of our bubble to be aware of how much film is being made here [in central Ohio] and to what level,” said Clark, who curated the inaugural Gravity Film Showcase with financial support from Gravity’s Brett Kaufman. The daylong event kicks off at noon on Saturday, Aug. 24, and features the work of 84 area filmmakers. Screenings will take place outdoors on the green space adjacent to Gravity Building A in Franklinton, as well as inside the building’s event center.

In building the showcase, Clark pulled from all levels of local filmmaking, from high school and college students to working professionals, and the films being screened include everything from “Cycle Breakers” to “River,” a Columbus-filmed short from directors Rafal Sokolowski and Kanat Omurbekov. In relatively few words, the film unpacks the tense dynamic between a trans woman, River, and her unaccepting parents, who lure their daughter to a church under disturbingly false pretenses. “To me, I basically wanted to raise the voice of trans people who face these kinds of issues daily,” Omurbekov said in an April interview with Matter News.

The showcase comprises a series of film blocks, including sections focused on short documentaries, animation and narrative shorts, as well as blocks centering works by and about the LGBTQ+ and BIPOC communities. Beyond highlighting the diversity of films being made in the city, Clark hopes the event can show the younger generation that there is a path filmmakers can follow living and working in Columbus, and that a move to Atlanta or New York or Los Angeles – long viewed as an essential step in the industry – doesn’t have to be a requirement to carve out a successful career in the field.

“I don’t want to deter anyone from having that experience; I’ve lived outside in the world,” Clark said. “But it’s just that. Can we build something sustainable? Can we build the infrastructure so people can stay and make their mark here? I truly think [Columbus] is going to be a Midwest hub of artistry. And I know I’m biased, but we have the population density, we have the art institutions. Every time I go to Atlanta or L.A. now, I meet a dozen people from Ohio who are in the film industry. … So, the paradigm, I think, is finally shifting.”