​Thomas Mendolia tells stories about people who are trying — and often failing — to hold on to each other. He began his artistic journey studying acting with a BFA at UNC Greensboro before earning his MFA in directing from USC’s School of Cinematic Arts. Raised in the quiet stretches of the American South by an Italian American family from Brooklyn, he grew up between two emotional extremes: loud love and long silences. That tension bleeds into all of his work — where family is everything, but it’s also the thing that breaks you.

 

His films blend grounded drama with surreal or haunting elements, often through the eyes of outsiders, children, or people caught between belief and doubt. He draws from Southern folklore, grief, magic, and memory — always searching for the strange in the ordinary. Whether it’s a boy and his imaginary friend on the run (Henry’s Ebb), a girl trying to fix her broken home through a demonic favor-trader (Mr. Thisforthat), or a father and son confronting what’s left of their relationship inside a mysterious electromagnetic dead zone (Quiet Zone), Thomas’s stories sit in that quiet place where love and fear look almost the same.