Biography

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Samuel Centore is a queer writer director and vfx producer based in Willow, NY. Sam attended New York State Summer School of the Arts in high school where he gained his affinity for experimental and documentary film. While studying at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, Sam began his career creating video content for NYC based fashion and cultural sites focusing on POC and LGBTQIA outlets and has been featured in V Magazine, Vogue Runway, Document Journal and Dazed. While developing his own experimental films at Pratt, he met a photographer working on a photo series documenting rural trans youth in Ellenville, NY. Having grown up as a gay man in a rural rust belt town, the topic resonated. Using the technical interview skills he was learning in his day job, and his own developing voice as a filmmaker, he created his first short documentary, Passing Ellenville. The short premiered at Seattle International Film Festival in 2012. In the process, he met the doc subjects’ self-proclaimed mother figure, Amy, and went on to create a second short documentary, All About Amy. The film won the best short documentary at Woodstock Film Festival in 2013 and screened at festivals internationally including British Film Institute in London. This second film explored the intersection of both queer identity and the story of an idealistic boomer in a sobering post industrial town. Making these docs, Sam learned how to create a safe place for people to speak their truths. Having developed a love of working with documentary subjects, Sam created his first short narrative film with the use of mainly non-professional actors. The film, Tyler Works at the Gas Station, premiered on Nobudge in 2020. The film is a coming of age satire of his creative community. Sam is in post production for his second short narrative film with similar themes, Wise Words. For his first feature, Bobbie’s House, Samuel is returning to the subject of his second short doc, Amy. Digging through hours of unused footage and conducting new interviews with the town, Sam is working closely with Amy and her community to bring a documentary edge to a narrative concept.