ABOUT

JOSHUA LACLÉ

From everywhere and nowhere at once, that's how it feels having Latin American, Caribbean, European, and American roots. I'm never 100% anything, always careening between intimacy and distance, inside and outside simultaneously.

This perspective of being perpetually in-between shapes how I see the world and create work.

My films explore what terrifies and excites me most: how technology is rewiring our brains, how we hide our darkest impulses, and what happens when people push past comfortable boundaries.

Sexuality threads through my work too, because we need to confront what we hide. I approach these territories with camp and color, with radical openness shaped by artists like Nan Goldin and Almodóvar. The goal isn't shock but recognition…seeing ourselves in the uncomfortable mirror I hold up.

QUESTIONS I GET ASKED A LOT

  • Anxiety about AI changing how our brains function. The rise of fascism globally. Walking at night when I can't sleep. Dancing. Consuming art that has nothing to do with what I'm making. These all feed into work that questions and critiques, that starts simple but becomes complex through editing.

  • Theatre trained me as an actor and showed me that connection is everything—that magic when strangers become collaborators. Now I direct, produce, write, and design because I'm interested in the full journey. I can handle creative vision and logistics, budgets and beauty. Being that one-stop lets me protect what matters: the substance at the center.

  • My five-year plan: direct my first indie feature, create a TV pilot, work in a writers' room. But really, I want to be part of a community of filmmakers who push back against generic, corporate content. Who make work that's commercial but interesting, widely viewed but with perspective.

  • Working with people who see humans as humans. Who understand that Palestine and trans rights aren't just political positions but about humanity. I'll lose work over this—I don't care. What I do care about is fostering environments where people feel free, heard, and inspired. Where 90% of collaborators leave feeling uplifted, ready to create more.