Train Dreams Director Clint Bentley on Losing Parents Before Filming

Clint Bentley has spent the last few years staring down grief and transformation, both on-screen and off.

The writer-director of “ Train Dreams ,” adapted from Denis Johnson’s Pulitzer Prize finalist novella, lost both of his parents in quick succession while preparing the film, an experience that reshaped his understanding of life, art and memory.

“Right after they passed, I would have these dreams that didn’t feel like dreams at times,” Bentley tells Variety ‘s Awards Circuit Podcast . “They felt like visitations. I believe I dreamed them, but the things that happened in those dreams — they’ve become as distinct as memories from when my parents were alive.”

Those blurred lines between the real and the surreal — between memory and imagination — are at the heart of “Train Dreams,