Find Yourself began as a film about my friend, Danny, who walked away from the high-pressure grind of NYC and into the unknown, landing in his father’s small hometown on the Dalmatian coast of Croatia just before the world shut down. He didn’t know what he was looking for, only that he couldn’t stay where he was.

Structured around the Wim Hof Method — breath, cold, and mindset — this film became a meditation on stillness, discomfort, and transformation. But it also became something else. While filming Find Yourself, I discovered that I was on my own parallel journey.

I’m adopted. I grew up without knowing much about my biological family or history. During production, I stumbled upon the remains of my grandfather’s childhood home on the island of Vis, abandoned since he fled it during World War II as a 15-year-old boy. That discovery cracked something open in me. Through a trail of records, DNA, and chance, I found him, still alive in California at 95 years old. We reconnected in the final years of his life and formed a relationship I never thought I’d have.

Although my story is not directly depicted in the documentary, it deeply influenced the way I approached telling Danny’s.

This isn’t just a story about healing. It’s about legacy, loss, and what it means to go home, sometimes to a place you’ve never been, or a person you’ve never met.

In chasing Danny’s story, I ended up finding my own.
That’s what Find Yourself is really about.