Coquitlam's Joel McCarthy can't remember the first time he made a film but he can remember first time he asked the question "Why does god hate me?"
The title of the 21-year-old's latest short film was inspired by a conference he attended during his days at Port Moody secondary school. It was hosted by fringe fundamentalist Christians in Reading, California and an overly zealous aunt - "Who's a nice lady and all," he notes - had forced him to go.
"I'd always been around the very left-wing side of Christianity in my life and I assumed it would be more like that," McCarthy recalled. "But about 10 minutes into this conference, people start speaking in tongues and I'm basically out of my comfort zone. Then the pastor stands up and shouts, 'We must cure the gays and end homosexuality!' And the whole crowd stood up and started cheering."
That's where the conference ended for McCarthy.
"Growing up in the suburbs of Vancouver my whole life - in Coquitlam - it was a really shocking thing to know that that's not happening all that far away from us. Like, we drove there."
And with that in mind, this year McCarthy finished writing and directing Why Does God Hate Me?, a dark comedy short film tackling the issue of growing up Christian and homosexual.
But while it was that first step out of his "comfort zone" that inspired the film, McCarthy said the movie's topic isn't really his home turf either.
You see, McCarthy's not gay, although he "definitely got the religious persecution side of it," he said.
And audiences have been "getting" his film too. On Aug. 21, Why Does God Hate Me? won best director in the gay/lesbian short film category at the New York City International Film Festival.
The youngest by far on the list of nominees, the 20-year-old was up against competition nearly four times his senior.
And while McCarthy isn't gunning for Hollywood just yet - he's still happily living at home in Coquitlam while he prepares for his final year of film school at North Vancouver's Capilano University - he does have a feature film script in the works that he hopes will further stir things up in his already bright young career.
"I've been putting down my nose and really working hard on that this summer," he said, without giving away too much. "It's definitely a change of pace from the last film"
