BF: Is this your first public screening? Did you choose the Bottletree as a location? What about that venue appeals to you?

JLK: My films have been screened at film festivals. I really like the Sidewalk film community in Birmingham. They've been very kind to me, very vital to me.

Bottletree was easily my first choice. They book the kind of bands and screen the kind of films that I like. I think their demographic is essentially my demographic. The noise band Black Dice plays there on June 7th, the night before my screening. I think that's really appropriate. If you like Black Dice, you'll probably like these films and vice versa. I love Black Dice.

BF: How has your experience with shooting locally been? Do you intend to stay in Alabama with your productions, or might you migrate out west to pursue opportunities?

JLK: I love shooting in Alabama. I never want to leave Alabama. I have absolutely no interest in New York or LA or Austin, the three big filmmaking cities. John Waters has Baltimore, I have Alabama. When I was young, like every whiny artsy kid, I couldn't wait to escape to Seattle or somewhere. Now, there's no way I'd move.

I'm a big Flannery O'Connor fan. Unfortunate circumstances required her to live most of her life on a large farm in a small Georgia town but I think it benefited her literature. Her best stories take place in small Southern towns with very Southern characters. I consider her one of my strongest influences. Georgia's gift to the world.

I think it'd be a big mistake to leave here. I have no interest in big city filmmaking.

BF: Who are you primary filmmaking influences, particularly on this project? Sometimes it's tough to make a list of this kind of thing, but I guess I'm wondering what films you might have been watching prior to and during your shooting.

JLK: I discovered the photographer Man Ray around 2004. He was instantly an influence. When I found out he had made some films, I was quick to track them down. His films and the short films of Derek Jarman were the first abstract motion pictures I'd ever seen. I'd never realized you could make a film without a story. I mean, I'd never even realized that was an option.

Werner Herzog is my favorite filmmaker. Nearly all of his films but especially Stroszek and Even Dwarfs Started Small are very inspirational to me. I love the films John Waters made in the '70s. I made most of the films on this DVD before I'd seen any of his, but since then his influence has certainly played a major role. I love Luis Buńuel's surrealist films. I stand in awe of Errol Morris' first two films but his recent work is very alien and uninteresting to me.

Then, of course, everyone loves to compare my films to Harmony Korine's and there's a lot of truth to that. He was definitely an influence. It'd be outrageous to claim otherwise. But it's really irritating that he's the only influence people pick up on. It seems like everyone thinks I merely emulate him but it happens. At one time, David Lynch couldn't escape Buńuel comparisons. And now, everyone likes to call any dream inspired film Lynchian, much like any dream inspired piece of literature is Kafkaesque. What can you do?

Outside of film, I admire the Dada and surrealist movements in spirit. Noise and ambient music also play a major part of my views on score music.

BF: What are some themes you like to explore as an artist? Having watched the DVD now, I noticed an interesting dynamic between parents and their children. Oftentimes, the parents force their kids into things they don't want to do. Or you just have authority figures impending their will on younger folks (although the kids do not always follow orders), like the old woman yelling at the young man sweeping the garage roof. What about these situations interests you?

JLK: Annette Wolfe, an actress I'm very fond of working with, was the first to point out this reoccurring motif and since then a lot of other people have noticed the trend, as well. None of that is really conscious on my part. I think it really boils down to the fact I have adult actors and child and teen actors and that kind of pairing is inevitable. In some cases, the characters are played by real mothers and daughters or sons so that adds an interesting dynamic. I would like to go on record as saying I love my mother, a wonderful woman, so there's nothing literally biographical going on in those scenes.

Some of these scenarios are deliberate satires of other situations that in no way involve family but I wouldn't ever dare to reveal my motivations for a particular scene. I much prefer an audience to take away his or her own interpretation, even if that interpretation is simply "This is funny" or, more likely, "This is disturbing."

BF: Do you think young artists often make too hasty of decisions when they opt to immediately head to places like New York City and Los Angeles when they'd have better chances of making the films they want to make at home?

JLK: I think it's healthy to be interested in places outside of your home, but I think people who run to New York and California solely because other filmmakers have made those places established film communities is a mistake. Some people need to be in big cities to be happy, so I guess it depends on the person. I like the potential of a small town. I think that's what makes a show like “Twin Peaks” or a film like Stroszek so fascinating.

BF: How much of the content found in the films reflects dreams or real-life situations you've had or encountered before? The films seem either highly personal or intentionally abstract. Does that lean one way, or is it a mixture?

JLK: In my entire life, I've only tried to make one film based on a dream and it was a complete disaster. I wish my dreams conformed more to a cinematic language so I could use them. I am, however, inspired by dreams - the way you can decode some latent personal metaphors after you wake up while other things remain more mysterious and therefore, occasionally, disturbing. I do try to emulate that with my filmmaking. I code some very personal real-life situations in a way that is emotionally true, even in its exaggerated form, but never merely a retelling of something that actually happened to me. I don't think anyone is interested in the Jason LaRay Keener story, but I do believe a lot of people can relate to some of my personal situations and enjoy seeing them completely shown for their core absurdity.

Meanwhile, in keeping with the influence of dreams, I throw in a bunch of total nonsense that may mean something to someone but usually not me. I like these hollow images. In my experience, I find people are often most disturbed by the scenes or images they don't understand. And sometimes, like with dreams, I decode personal influence after the fact. But again, I'd never share that with an audience and ruin their personal relationship with a film.

A lot of people do tell me they don't understand the films. It's an understandable reaction, but the films were never intended for anyone who can walk away from one of these films and say something like that. On the other hand, most of my friends are people who saw the films, loved them and bothered to get in touch with me. This includes my girlfriend. Those people are also the ones who become my cast. Making films has become the only way I can make friends and therefore have fresh actors.

One of these friends is filmmaker Andy Sparkman. He's never submitted a film to a festival and I have no idea why not. His movies are incredible, even if few people have seen them, and I've commissioned a new film for the screening at Bottletree. Of all my filmmaking friends, I relate most to Andy.

BF: By the way, my favorite of the shorts is Hail Cracking Cobra Eggs, though I did find the final moment of Hollow Porcelain Fish Chamber quite haunting and was impressed with the title cue after the last line.

JLK: I'm very glad it's your favorite. I believe it's my favorite as well. It's a combination of two short films made during 48-hour film competitions, and both of those were made during the two darkest periods of my life. The first was titled All Angels Have Rat Tails and the second was Ballerina Furnace. The titles say it all, don't they?

Hail Cracking Cobra Eggs was like some sort of exorcism of really bitter feelings and I think that's fairly obvious when watching it. All of my films are crazy, but I think with that one you can really tell its maker was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. That film is mostly a rant, for better or worse.