My grandmother has kept all of his stuff in a drawer. This one notebook was particularly chilling. He's [howard Brookner] writing to his parents knowing he has a death sentence his movies are how he'll live on.

It's been scattered and I had to follow leads. Some stuff was with different family members in various drawers. I find out about more stuff and more stuff [over time]. I won't call it a treasure hunt, but it's like an old Western movie we're you're onto one thing and it turns into another.

Obviously there was Keith Haring and Robert Mapplethorpe, but Howard was on the brink of becoming a famous director - it didn't happen because he died.

In adolescence I started to find out about Robert Wilson because I saw Lou Reed's Timerocker at [the Brooklyn Academy of Music]. I started getting into Jim Jarmusch and knew that my uncle was a friend of his. I pieced together parts of his life in high school and college, which lead me to his story in a funny way.