LLOYD CULBERSON – ACTOR/WRITER/DIRECTOR/PRODUCER
Will You Just Hold Me & Tell Me Everything’s Gonna Be Alright? is a dramatic feature that follows a young man, Lloyd (Lloyd Culberson), who has been so consumed with his job that he missed his father’s funeral. At the beginning of the film, it’s set up that following this death, Lloyd has kind of isolated himself from everyone. He’s shacked up with a new boyfriend (Aria Emory), but asks his former best friend, Drew (Drew Harwood), who he’s in love with, to take the trip back home with him to pay his last respects. Lloyd is really searching for something in this film, what it is he doesn’t exactly know. He has all these romantic relationships, like with Drew and Aria, but he has a girl back home, Hannah (Hannah Moore), his first love who he has lingering feelings toward. He’s basically at the point where he has his world totally crashing down around him and he can either face it and sort it all out or disintegrate. Will You Just Hold Me & Tell Me Everything’s Gonna Be Alright? is the third feature from A Murder of Crows Productions and director Lloyd Culberson.
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“I wanted to do a film that was kind of a mash up between fiction and my real life, that’s why I wanted everyone to play a fictionalized version of themselves. I kept all my actors real names for the film to just keep us all in a realistic state. Harmony Korine’s Gummo and Julien Donkey Boy were a big inspiration for me in blending fiction with reality.”
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Upon arriving back at home in West Virginia, Lloyd instantly clashes with his overbearing mother. His absence has been noticed by her and the entire family, and it is very looked down upon, particularly by his older sister. He reunites with Hannah and meets her new son, which she had with another man. Living with a recovering heroin addict in a state dominated by addiction and dead ends, she longs for something more. Both she and Lloyd still feel strong love for each other.
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After going through his late father’s belongings, Lloyd and Drew find a letter from a former student of Mr. Culberson and decide to drive back to their home in California and seek him out along the way. Lloyd takes the opportunity to go across the country as a kind of personal odyssey to settle his relationship with Drew, find his father, and himself.
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“Some of the things I wanted to explore in this film are prevalent themes throughout my work. They include the relationship between fathers and sons, sexuality, homosocial relationships, family (whether biological or formed), death, and love.”
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After a telling scene visiting Mr. Culberson’s grave and a pit stop in a college town to spend time with their jaded, but vulnerable friend Lyz (Elizabeth Matheny), Drew and Lloyd head out for Texas to see the former student, Travis (Edrick Browne, Django Unchained, The Paperboy), and his estranged, drug addicted uncle, Luke (Andrew Sensenig, Upstream Color). The film is about the past that haunts us all as human beings and the impact of our unfinished business in everyday life. The events of the film could be the path to closure that Lloyd so desperately seeks, or the opening of old wounds and more questions to be answered. Will You Just Hold Me & Tell Me Everything’s Gonna Be Alright? will be making the festival rounds in the coming year.
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Will You Just Hold Me & Tell Me Everything’s Gonna Be Alright? (TRAILER) from Lloyd Culberson on Vimeo.
BIO:
Lloyd Culberson is an actor, writer, director, and producer. He formed a small production company, A Murder of Crows Productions, in 2011, and later partnered with Drew Harwood in 2012. Will You Just Hold Me & Tell Me Everything’s Gonna Be Alright?, is the 17th film Harwood and Culberson have completed together since that time. Citing Harmony Korine, Larry Clark, Derek Cianfrance, Lars von Trier, Robert Altman, and Darren Aronofsky as his favorite directors, Culberson has made films on a range of topics including autism, drug and alcohol abuse, sexuality, mental illness, crime, and violence. Drawn towards darker material, Culberson says he ‘wants to make movies that others might be afraid to make, because those are the types of films I enjoy. I think when something is deemed as disturbing, it really just means it tapped into an honesty we’re afraid of.’
Culberson is currently working on a photography book, shot by Harwood and himself, which focuses on a Dystopian future. Along with Will You Just Hold Me & Tell Me Everything’s Gonna Be Alright?, Culberson will have another feature, Bloodlines, in the festival circuit next year. Upcoming projects for A Murder of Crows Productions include a pair of features, five short films, and an episodic series. Culberson lives and works in Los Angeles.
