Press Kit

Adrian Goycoolea’s Director’s Statement

“A Mixtape for Stom” is a personal documentary about my close friend, Stom Sogo, a Japanese experimental filmmaker whose untimely death in 2012 left a lasting impact on those who knew him. Structured as a response to his final email to me, the film combines personal voiceover, archival material, and interviews with artists, filmmakers, and family members.

Stom was more than a filmmaker; he was a catalyst in New York’s experimental film community at the turn of the millennium. As a projectionist at Anthology Film Archives, he organised screenings and cultivated a network that connected and energised a generation of underground artists. His work, often marked by strobing imagery, re-photography, and layered sound, drew on a wide range of influences, including Jonas Mekas, Jon Moritsugu, John Cage, and Dennis Cooper. Yet it remained distinctly personal, shaped by his lived experience of epilepsy, trauma, substance misuse, and mental health difficulties.

In making this film, I wanted not only to honour Stom’s artistic contribution but also to understand the forces that shaped his life and led to his death from a drug overdose. “A Mixtape for Stom” is a tribute, but also a reckoning: an exploration of memory, loss, and the difficulty of reconciling an artist’s creative brilliance with the troubling aspects of their life that surface only after they are gone.