SYNOPSIS:

We walk Hyde Park with longtime friends Sam Wainwright Douglas and David Hartstein — the co-directing team behind Blue Suitcase — and it is not a short story. Turns out it started at Slamdance 2006: David was editing ALONG CAME KINKY: TEXAS JEWBOY FOR GOVERNOR and needed an editor who actually knew Texas; Sam had THE HOLY MODAL ROUNDERS: BOUND TO LOSE playing the same festival. One carpetbagger recognizing another, basically.

Before teaming up, David quietly built a run as a go-to producer — THE HAPPY POET, a Venice Biennale College Cinema slot for BARRACUDA — while Sam directed and edited on his own path, making CITIZEN ARCHITECT, HONKY TONK HEAVEN: THE LEGEND OF THE BROKEN SPOKE and NONO A DOCUMENTARY, among many others. 

Then they finally co-directed together: FADERS UP: THE JOHN AIELLI EXPERIENCE, a loving portrait of the KUT radio legend that started as a short film, went viral off his estate-sale footage, and ended in a standing ovation and an Audience Award at the Paramount during SXSW.

From there the pattern holds — a work-for-hire deep dive into Houston Oilers coach Bum Phillips (LUV YA BUM!) and a gorgeous, prescient border-art doc, THROUGH THE REPELLENT FENCE, about Postcommodity’s two-mile art installation stitching the US and Mexico together. Sam and David break down their “good cop, bad cop” creative rapport, the philosophy of “building consensus” instead of dictating on set, and why work-for-hire gigs can be exactly the thing that funds the passion projects.

We close on a lightning round — 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY and STOP MAKING SENSE as gateway drugs, fatherhood and AI as the things they can’t stop thinking about. Two decades of friendship, a dozen-plus films between them, and they’re still bickering like it’s day one.

DISCUSSION LINKS

THE HOLY MODAL ROUNDERS: BOUND TO LOSE (2007) | ALONG CAME KINKY: TEXAS JEWBOY FOR GOVERNOR (2009) | WINNEBAGO MAN (2010) | THE HAPPY POET (2010) | BARRACUDA (2017) | THE SENSITIVES (2017) | THROUGH THE REPELLENT FENCE: A LAND ART FILM (2017) | FADERS UP: THE JOHN AIELLI EXPERIENCE (2024) | LUV YA BUM! (2025) | 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968) | STOP MAKING SENSE (1984) | THE AI DOC: OR HOW I BECAME AN APOCALOPTIMIST (2026)

TIMESTAMPS

00:00 Cold open — sorting out cameras and buttons in Hyde Park
00:03 Meet Sam Wainwright Douglas & David Hartstein of Blue Suitcase
00:04 Walking past THE SENSITIVES director Drew Xanthopoulos’s old house
00:08 The pattern in their combined filmography
00:10 How they actually met — Slamdance 2006
00:11 Sam’s move back to Texas, David’s Long Island roots
00:14 Their first co-directing credit: FADERS UP
00:15 Who was John Aielli — 50 years on Austin radio
00:18 Making FADERS UP — the estate-sale video that went viral
00:24 The SXSW premiere, the Paramount, and the Audience Award
00:26 Next up: LUV YA BUM! and Bum Phillips
00:31 THROUGH THE REPELLENT FENCE and the US-Mexico border art piece
00:33 “Good cop, bad cop” and building consensus on set
00:37 Lightning round begins
00:40 Gateway films: 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY and STOP MAKING SENSE
00:41 Non-film obsessions: fatherhood and AI
00:42 AI in the edit bay — Descript, Premiere, and Chris Hyams
00:44 Blue Suitcase sign-off