I Used to Be Darker

Production

In July 2011, Matthew Porterfield started raising money to fund the production of I Used to Be Darker via Kickstarter. The project achieved its goal of $40,000 on August 13, 2011.

Cast

Porterfield had already known Ned Oldham for several years before casting him as Bill, and Amy Belk went to college with Kim Taylor in the 1990s. After meeting Taylor and seeing her perform, Porterfield "knew almost immediately she had what [he] was looking for". Porterfield first met Hannah Gross and Deragh Campbell when they attended the premiere of his previous film, Putty Hill (2010), but didn't keep in touch with them. He later auditioned Gross, following advice from a friend who is a professor at New York University, where Gross studies in the Experimental Theater Wing. Through Gross, Porterfield later met Campbell and cast them both in the film.

Critical response

Review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 80% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 20 reviews, with a rating average of 7.3 out of 10. At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted mean rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 69, based on ten reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews".

Accolades

I Used to Be Darker won the award for Best Narrative Feature at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2013 and Matthew Porterfield won the award for Best Director at the Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema.