Director Biography
Mitchel Viernes is an independent filmmaker born and raised in Hawai’i on the island of Oahu. He developed an immediate interest in film after receiving a Sony Camcorder as a present at the age of 10. He went on to develop his passion during his teenage years at Moanalua High School, being heavily involved with the film program, and then continued his education at the University of Waikato in New Zealand where he received his Bachelor’s of Media and Creative Technology, majoring in screen studies. He has directed and produced a handful of short films since graduating, including a feature film titled, “Peter and the Colossus” which premiered at the Doris Duke Theater in September of 2014. Currently he is working on an anthology film titled “The Gallery”. His one goal is to reach out to people through film and tell stories that move audiences in a variety of ways.
Director Statement
More Than Love is actually the first film in an anthology film project that is currently in production titled, “The Gallery”. The four short films in the anthology take a peek into the personal and intimate aspects of four people’s lives. In More Than Love, that person is Amy.
The script for the film was written roughly three years ago by my good friend Josiah Simpson, who I’ve known since I was 8 and has been making movies with since middle school. He got the idea from a short poem he wrote, and began attaching images to each of the lines. The poem eventually became Amy’s narration that runs through the majority of the film. I fell in love with the story immediately because of the simplicity of it, but also because of the many heavy topics that it covers in such a short time span.
As the film was being completed, Josiah had already gotten inspiration for three other stories that were similar and worked complementary to More Than Love, and after sitting down and hearing the ideas for them, we knew they had to be made and I knew it would work so nicely as an
anthology film, where each of the stories were presented together as a group.
The second film in the anthology is currently in production. Those interested can keep up to date with the progress of the rest of the films at:
facebook.com/intertainmentstudios
Under 5 minute & Smartphone festival 