Andrew Darlak

Andrew Darlak was born on August 5th, 2003 in Paoli, Chester County, near Philadelphia, PA. He grew up in the suburbs of West Chester. Much of his childhood was spent filming stop motion films using LEGO minifigures using his mother's iPad. Among the earliest films he ever watched were the works of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, such as the Indiana Jones and Star Wars franchises. In 2015, he joined the Boy Scouts, and would go on to earn merit badges in Photography and Moviemaking, his favorite merit badges. He earned his Moviemaking merit badge by directing his first adventure film on a 18-35mm Canon DSLR. There was an absence of filmmaking throughout high school, having considered a multitude of careers with the onset of college, such as a lawyer, engineer, architect, history teacher, and archaeologist. At 17, however, after revisiting Raiders of the Lost Ark again for another watch, he ultimately decided to pursue filmmaking. At 18, he wrote his first two feature screenplays. One of them was about Zachary Taylor's campaign during the Mexican-American War, called Old Rough and Ready. The other was a pirate comedy he casted his friends in, called The Adventures of Captain Crippled. He wrote and published 6 short stories, among genres such as fantasy, crime thriller, drama, and horror. His longest being a 20-page horror story called Blacktree, based off the lives of the mountain men of Westward Expansion during the 1840s, such as Hugh Glass and Jim Bridger. He applied to many film schools around New York City, such as Hofstra University and St. John's University. But due to tuition costs, he decided to attend Kutztown University. During freshman year, he wrote and directed four films: his first western, Hand-to-Hand Combat; his first horror, Paranoia; his first drama, Want Some Coffee?; and his first absurdist comedy, Rovers of the Forest. His favorite filmmakers and greatest influences are Steven Spielberg, Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorcese, Stanley Kubrick, Sergio Leone, Hayao Miyazaki, Akira Kurosawa, Francis Ford Coppola, David Lean, Alfred Hitchcock, and Michael Curtiz. His filmmaking style and techniques involve extreme wide shots, extreme high and low angles, quick cut transitions, and handheld cameras. His common themes involve polarization, yin and yang duality, adolescent maturity, and Generation Z issues. He is currently working on two upcoming films: The Ikarians (a modern adaptation of the Greek tragedy, The Fall of Icarus) and American Scouts (first feature-length film).