Tariq Stone is a filmmaker and photographer exploring memory, identity, cultural heritage, and loss through a hyperbolic, emotional lens, His work blends the personal with the mythical to tell the stories we inherit, forget, and carry forward.
Juno: The Graveyard Of Memories is a film directed, written, shot, and produced by Tariq Stone. Juno is a celestial being who experiences human lives by touching discarded objects that hold memories. As she navigates a mystical garden, touching these items, her isolation deepens, revealing the contrast between the vividness of memories and her own detachment.
The film was created in tandem with the photo series developed during Tariq’s artist residency with the Recology Artist In Residence Program.
Dreaming of Carhartt is a surreal, playful short film produced in partnership with OpenLight Films. The story follows Soren, a wide-eyed dreamer whose fixation on an iconic Carhartt jacket pulls him into a world where memory, fantasy, and reality blur.
Blending music video aesthetics, hip-hop culture, and arcade dreamscapes, the film explores branding, nostalgia, obsession, and identity through a tactile, emotional lens. It’s both a critique and a celebration of the symbols we chase, and the stories stitched into what we wear.
CINEMATOGRAPHY REEL
tariq stone
Tariq Stone is a filmmaker and photographer drawn to the emotional life of objects, memories, and places. Raised between Los Angeles and the Bay Area, his constant movement between homes, communities, and identities led to a fixation on the in-betweens, the fleeting moments, and where the idea of home can exist in a million forms at once.
Tariq’s work blends genres and formats, fashion editorial, surreal narrative, music video, commercial, and installation, approaching each project as a world-building sandbox to experiment with tone, contradiction, and the emotional weight of material things. He is fascinated by the ways we assign value to what we wear, collect, and discard; how obsession, nostalgia, and reinvention shape our sense of identity. His storytelling often explores themes like memory, cultural heritage, identity, religious ideology, and the complex dynamics of loss and family tradition.
Inspired by his photographer father and fueled by a childhood rivalry with his sister over who could take better photos, Tariq fell in love with image-making early on. Though he was initially known for his cinematography, he grew frustrated by underdeveloped stories and creative compromise. Directing became his way of reclaiming control, not just of the image, but of the entire ecosystem: the tone, rhythm, and on-set environment that breathe life into his films.
Known by his peers as Tariq “anything for the shot” Stone, he is recognized for his experimental approach to cinematography, whether that means strapping a camera to a shopping cart or wading into lakes to get the perfect angle. His signature style includes vivid, textured lighting and surreal visual language that invites viewers to reconsider the meaning of the objects and memories we leave behind.
At the core of his process is an ongoing question: How do you stay true to your artistic vision while navigating an industry built on compromise? Though there’s no easy answer, every project brings him closer. His work is for those still searching for a version of home, a sense of meaning, or simply a place to land.