He took a chance and ended up showing at the Tribeca Film Festival

Joe Kowalski (BA ’17) took his wife Sam outside by the dumpsters of their job. He had some news to share with her. When they got there, he started crying. He couldn’t get the words out just yet. Sam didn’t need to know why her husband was in tears for her to start crying too.

Joe quickly reassured her. What he had to tell her was good news. Really good news, actually.

The documentary he’d been working on for the past five years had been accepted at the Tribeca Film Festival and they were headed to New York City in June.

This was a long shot. Joe is fully aware that he’s relatively unknown. No delusions of grandeur there. He’s new to the “scene”, as they say, though he’s far from being a novice filmmaker. But submitting what has been a labor of love to one of the most high-profile film festivals in the country was a risk he was willing to take. He wasn’t expecting much though.

“it's just the thing you do, just submit to some of the big ones,” he said.

“And you probably get disappointed, so it really was quite stunning when we found out about that.”

Joe’s documentary is called Micronations. It is the tale of people throughout the world who have formed their own sovereign states, though not officially recognized in any official capacity by any world government.

There’s Asgardia, a group that wanted to form a space colony. Obsidia is, according to its official website, “a tiny, matriarchal, micro-nation located at the confluence of feminism and geography.” Then there’s the Republic of Vevčani in northern Macedonia, which attempted to establish themselves as an official nation after the dissolution of Yugoslavia.

These are only a few, and Joe had heard about of some of them in passing years ago. It wasn’t until he did a deep dive that the idea for the film developed.

In 2022, he and his film crew — including fellow CSU grads Tom Zavertnik (BFA ’20), Andrew Jurcak (BA ’11) and Mohit Kulkarni (BFA ’21) — set out on what became a cross-country and international odyssey to the tell the story of the people who a part of these communities.

Joe even joined one. Yes, he’s officially a citizen of the Republic of Zaqistan in Box Elder County, Utah, named after its founder Zaq Landsberg.

As Joe met the nations’ inhabitants, learned their cultures, talked with the rulers of their domains, a deeper story emerged.

“What does it really take to form a country, and why do we call a place a place, and how do communities form in the 21st century when it sometimes feels like people can be more isolated than ever?” he said of the more probing questions the film tackles.

“For some of these folks I think it's a way to find a little sense of empowerment in that.”

Beyond that, Joe saw elements of revolution in the micronations, pushback on the status quo, a reconfiguration of society—at least their own—that flies in the face of what exists today.

“I think a lot of us feel very frustrated by the governments that we find ourselves in quite often,” he said.

“And so there can be a sense of reclamation and a sense of empowerment from feeling like you have a little bit more control and building the community you'd like to see in the world.”

Joe walked away himself with a sense of the beauty in forming something out of nothing.

Tribeca was the first time he and his team had shown the film to an audience. Surprisingly, Joe says he wasn’t nervous. He was uber-focused, grateful that he was able to share Micronations with the world.

“To actually sit in a room and experience it with people, especially with people who just kind of took a chance on seeing it, because it sounded kind of interesting to them—just complete strangers–was just incredible," he said.

The reception, so far, has been positive. After the showing, he says he had a number of meaningful conversations with the audience.

“I had one guy come up to me, and he was like, ‘you don't know how bad the last month and a half of my life has been, and I just feel like I really needed that movie.’”

Tribeca isn’t the end for Micronations. It’s actually just the beginning. Joe and his team plan to take the film on the road and spread the word. There are more festivals lined up with even a Cleveland screening planned for October.

“I'm so fascinated by this thing, and other people deserve to know about it, and my friends are also interested in it, so there must be something there..."