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Jonah Ocuto

@ocutor

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these words are for you

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I’ve had these vans for well over 5 years. They are ripping at the seams, the soles have worn down to the point where my sock touches the ground, I had to cut the elastic on the left shoe when my foot exploded (leaving it dangling on by sheer force of will alone), my toes poke out of the front of them at weird angles, especially when I forget to cut my toe nails. I’ve worn them to Lincoln Lake, upstate, in the desert, on the streets of Chicago and New York, in and around my apartment, stepped in puddles, in between the talus of Devils Lake, on film sets new + old, over streams of piss and other Mysterious Liquids. A tattoo artist wrapped them in saran wrap as they felt they could contaminate one of my very many fresh wounds. They stayed on my feet when I fell face first in a mud pit, alone with the mosquitos. I cried in them in front of my mother. They feel good! It feels good to wear old shoes.

I have been thinking a lot about clothes, and why I hate them. People love clothes! And people treat clothes with care. I have been encouraged by very many friends to acquire more clothes, nice clothes to hang up, or to press, clothes that make me feel good, but nothing makes me feel better than my very old vans.

Maybe I don’t hate clothes so much, maybe it’s more about the me in the clothes! I don’t hate me, but I sure do hate thinking about me in clothes. This year I want to figure that out.

I think my entire life I have resisted the reality in which I am an image - a stranger in the eyes of others, something that we attach expectations and assumptions to. I think of this as the mannequin me. At the same time, I have always desired to be understood deeply (not widely), and I do not fear being understood, and so there’s a natural dilemma that has followed me these past 27 years. Maybe that’s why the art comes out, it is like a me that isn’t me.

I love digging into people (pause) and discovering their stories, their damage and their dreams. I have never thought clothes communicate any of that, but maybe they do, because my old vans seem to.

This year, I’m thinkin about old shoes, and where I’ll take them (or perhaps they’ll take me?) next. by @ocutor

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13 days ago

I am showing my movie this Wednesday! New York peoples please pull up. There will also be some other lovely films by local New York dudes.

It is perhaps easier to make these things in a vacuum, and potentially just as satisfying, too - after all I have always been better at doing the thing rather than showing the thing. One of the very many lessons I have learned this past year is that for better or for worse, showing the thing is just as important as the doing it part.

It is maybe surprising to some to hear how anxious showing the thing makes me - I am quite extroverted, but there is a certain feeling of nudity that comes with showing a movie. I don’t know if other art forms feel quite as naked, certainly not to me. Pigeon, in that sense, is me standing butt-ass naked, freak flag flying, all of my squirmy brainy bits mashed onto one thing.

Anyways, I hope to see whoever there :) by @ocutor

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a month ago

Welcome to the show... 🇺🇸

Official sizzle reel out now. Visit the link in our bio for more info 🎣

rainoffish.com by @ocutor

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3 months ago

One year of polishing this squirmy brain thing into something that resembles a motion picture.

pigeon - a movie that is real and almost finished

written directed and edited by me
Starring @fionuhhhh
featuring @natereilly_ and @veritilala
Shooted by @ethan.schoenbomb
Designed by @cstop.ka
Produced by @drew.hartley
Musics by @caseysynesael @chloebondlatia and @freq__mod
Sounds by @_raandersen_
Particularly scary sounds by @viviangrey33
Colors by @emilybremner_
Crazy pictures by @tomsdiner.media and Louis Zeller
Kept on track by @mishadabear
Lit and stuff by @dhruvohno and @edmonds.dav
Sounds recorded and delivered with CONSUMMATE PROFESSIONALISM by @marco_baket and @brenrei77
Laptop and other items vandalized by @jettadog_palmer
Sexy faces and silhouettes by @socialistfairy
Birds by Jason

Movies are stupid things that are somehow always worth making. Out when it’s ready. by @ocutor

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6 months ago

A few cool pictures from back in the day, missing Chicago a lot. This is probably my favorite picture of Mom. She’s always smiling in photos, and she’s always smiling outside of photos too, and this is a photo of one of those more common smiles that is somehow harder to capture, because she also has an amazing sense for when the camera is pointed at her (which she loves). I clearly do not love the camera as much, unless a friend is holding it, and even then, I shy away from it, which is funny for a guy who wanted to be an actor. There was a safety in being anything but yourself in front of a camera, or an audience, back then. I think I project my insecurities onto cameras, and what they see, but cameras don’t judge. I’ve got to learn to be more like the camera: to take it all in, baby. by @ocutor

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7 months ago

i spent a lot of 2025 trying to make amends and failed in just about every unsexy hideously grotesque humiliating way, tumbling down the five-story walk up stairs that was this past year with all the grace of a slippered dog, or like peter griffin in that one episode, yeah, you know the one

it has been approximately a year since my pre-frontal cortex grew up, and as it turns out, things look very different once that happens, you see things clearly, without projection

of the very many things I have been thinking about this past year, one stands out: people matter. and wow, do I love people!

my mom retired after 37 years of teaching (and survived 3 months before going back part-time), and one of the things i never get sick of hearing are her stories about her students, about the stupid little things she does to brighten their days

for example: one time, she wore whitey tighties outside of her pants for a class and acted as if she didn’t know they were there. there are her rap songs, too, of course.

these stories are very inspiring to me, and she is too, because she isn’t afraid to go first, to play the fool, to do whatever it takes to bring a bit of joy to an angsty 13 year old’s day

i talked to my dad about what it means to be counter culture these days (he was a rude boy hippie CBGB’s P.U.N.K) and we talked about how it was to get offline, to talk to people, to get involved, as my generation grows lonelier and lonelier in our internet bubbles

here’s the fact - when you’re happy, i’m happy. so i’ll do whatever it takes to make you smile, to help you feel like you, to celebrate you, as my own quiet act of rebellion in this very treacherous world. i refuse to live my life in any other way.

so if we haven’t spoken in a while, reach out! i’d like to hear from you, to see your smile, and to celebrate all of what you are.

that goes for you, and you, and you and ESPECIALLY, you too.

(it’s funny how nervous i am posting a video of my face vs these incriminating ass words lol. anyways here’s something ive been editing for the next ppl vid) by @ocutor

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9 months ago

this year, for my birthday

i got a new pair of vans (with laces), two deep dish pizzas(thank you mama chen) and a handful of new friends i’ve made in this place i am currently calling home.

i told everyone at the crag that i was grateful for them - i was ready to spend this birthday alone - and how lucky i felt to be sharing it with these people who have been welcoming me in.

and i feel company when i’m alone, too, here in new york. like i’ve got my dad with me, he’s in the accents and the meatball heros and the angry people and the baked ziti and everything else.

re: let it rock - i’ve been climbing to this song on repeat since last june, where in a sleep deprived stupor, near midnight, lily and jhack played it as we began our work on from the top. we danced in the living room and it was pretty fucking awesome.

alright man, here’s the deal: you get what you give, realness is forever, coolness begets coolness, forever is not a scary word. 26 is a dope number. i’m grateful for you.

thank you lovely louis for the sneak peek at the end which i am too excited about not to share!

and as always, these words are for you by @ocutor

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a year ago

couldn’t find out how to take the filter off his voice

voice reveal at 50k ig

#lluviadepeces #indiefilm #director #newyork taken in Brooklyn, New York by @ocutor

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a year ago

i’ve been thinking lots about climbing recently, which means i’ve been thinking lots about jack. there aren’t many people you can say wholeheartedly have changed your life, but he has. we’ve done stupid crazy amazing things together and he has made me a braver, more empathetic and determined man.

the second video is from the day we both sent “the finch” a boulder that we tried on and off for over two years! i’ll never forget how frustrated i was, sick and exhausted, about not being able to do it the first year. how he calmed me down, laid with me on a rock in the sun. we listened to cherry blossoms from the katamari ost, and i was overcome by this incredible feeling that it was going to be okay. that i was small and that the sun loved me regardless.

i’m excited to keep doing awesome things with my best friend jack. by @ocutor

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a year ago

and so i’ve done that thing i’ve been thinking about, irish goodbyed the city that’s taught me so much. it’s feeling good to be in a new place, and to know nobody, and to be excited climbing again, and to have interesting thoughts and pictures and stories in my head again. it is cool to introduce myself to people with a smile, because that’s what rob would do. it’s cool to walk the same streets my dad did 60 years ago. it’s cool to approach new people with sincerity, because that’s what i do. i am looking forward to learning a lot about everything this year. by @ocutor

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a year ago

from the top - link in bio

there are certain phrases that burn themselves into your grey matter - phrases that etch themselves into your skin. you will not know what they mean until many years later, where after four hours, at 4:30 AM, your eyes will blink open - though they were never fully closed - to an encroaching disbelief: you get it now.

you will study these words, flipping them in your mind like a pancake, chasing some intangible way in. you will not find it. until that moment comes, in that magic hour, you will not, could not understand.

and slowly, in every buzzing hope, it reveals itself, like that look you can’t hide. you will recognize that these words have been said - they denote time, they mark a moment. that moment has passed. you would like to go back. so you will hold on to those words, make them your present, and dream.

these words are for you by @ocutor

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a year ago

okay, people

it turns out it’s harder, getting rid of that sticky melancholy that comes after you shoot a film, when you shot it in your home. i’ve put the furniture back, and the walls are quiet, but i still hear david dhruv and ethan laughing behind me, and i still see misha and drew smiling in the corner. fiona has put her heart in my hands and given me permission to guide it. i better not fuck this up. chris alex and chrissie have made my house a lovely mess - i’m stepping on something, always. marco and brendan hear everything. there is a bird in my house and he has pooped on my blanket. bird poop doesn’t smell.

it rained last night, and the dew this morning felt nice - it felt fresh, like some great storm had passed and paved the way for newer, wetter things: tears that came like a great gust of wind, that brought me to my knees, and was in a moment, gone

the film means less than the people i made it with, who put their trust in me, and trust i do not take for granted

the tears came when i realized a few things - first, that i think we’re getting better at this, that i want to do this, but more importantly: that for the first time in a while, i feel like myself again

you can do a lot in four days if you get to work. and the work is easy when you trust the people around you

ethan, my darling, thank you for it all. there is a reason i ask you what you think - i want to listen, to learn, and to share this journey with you. our love is forever, cowboy. see you in five years.

i didn’t take many of the pictures here, so thanks to those who did that for me. i swear i’d give the whole thing up for you. by @ocutor

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a year ago