David Huff is entertaining.

Making films wasn’t on David’s lifetime list of things to accomplish. “It was an early midlife shift,” he says. But storytelling is something he’s always been interested in (he has a master’s degree in mythology)—so filmmaking was a natural, if unexpected, fit for him. “My dad wrote short stories,” David says, adding that there’d been talk about making a movie, but the project never materialized. “I had just finished grad school, and I said, ‘Let’s do it.’” David launched Back 40 Films, and the movie Simple Things, based on his dad’s writing, was released last summer to national acclaim. Now, David is working on a documentary about hemlock trees in the Smoky Mountains, and another film based on The Mommy Chronicles, co-authored by Charlottean Sara Behnke, is in the works. “My dream is to go to the Academy Awards and drive up to the Kodak Theatre on a red tractor,” David laughs.

What he likes most about skirt!? I like the look of it—it’s inspiring and it’s also creatively put together. And you guys throw great martini parties.

And wearing a skirt? Freedom, baby! Liberation.