I want the world to see and understand Black and Brown people on screen with humanity and sympathetic eyes. To find themselves in my characters. Together we can create a future where that is normal.
NYC Parks Department
Diesel Gym
Lovetown - Ehiorobo
Diesel Gym
Lovetown- Christine
Meet Delon
Diesel Gym
Cold Summer
‘Pool’ Ehiorobo
A part of you
/ made me whole again
Two lives
one gift
A post-kidney transplant memoir, told as a dream-like prayer for Mom.
I couldn’t go through a kidney transplant and stay quiet.
Right after I moved off dialysis, a new patient was moved into the same center who was only a year older than me. The nurses asked me to explain to him how his life is going to be from now on. He tells me “this shit is hard man” and I tell him “I know.” He asked me how I handle it and I said “I barely do.” As long as you have someone to donate then that means this gets to end.
I knew one day I was going to make a film about it, but I didn't know what it was going to be. The more I ruminated on the subject the more I found myself thinking about my relationship with my mother and how it evolved rapidly after she gave me a kidney. It's now this thing we didn’t talk about but both know something is different. Truthfully I don’t have an answer to why this film might be important to the world. It is important to me and I am hoping it will be important to my mom. A thank you for her gift to keep me here.
As we made A PART OF YOU, I realized it could function as a reminder to everybody that “people need people”. I know it sounds cliche but I was someone who was fiercely independent and this experience forced me to drop whatever my idea of independence was and just accept that I can't do anything alone. I had to literally have a part of my mother put inside of me just to keep living day to day. You may not need an actual part of somebody to live day to day but you can't do anything alone. You need somebody(s) for your own growth and survival.
‘24 Sonoma International Film Festival Grand Jury prize for best short doc.
‘24 Provincetown international Film Festival
World Premiere. '23 Lower East Side Film Festival
West Coast Premier '23 Oregon Bend Film Festival
'23 Tallgrass Film Festival
'23 Walla Walla Movie Crush
'23 New Faces New Voices Film Festival
'23 Cucalorus Film Festival
thanks mom ❤️
Long before he was a filmmaker,
Destyn trained to play tennis professionally. A few years after kidney failure stopped his sports career, he struggled to find what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. When he picked up a camera he found something that made him feel full.
He learned that cinema can force people to sympathize with people they cannot relate to. He wants to capture sensitive and human moments that anyone can feel. He create films that portray the humanity and complexity of the lives of black and brown people. He wants people to see his community the way he sees it.