Ian’s first feature as writer-director is the modern cautionary tale The Way We Speak starring 2023 Screen Actors Guild Awards nominee Patrick Fabian—known for playing Howard Hamlin on AMC’s hit series Better Call Saul. The film is currently 93% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, with Matt Zoller Seitz of RogerEbert.com saying “The Way We Speak has already been compared to the work of Aaron Sorkin. The comparison fits…Ebright is ruthless in the best way.” Among the film’s awards, Ian won Best First-Time Director at the 2025 Poppy Jasper International Film Festival and Outstanding Writer of a Narrative Feature at the 2024 Anchorage International Film Festival—each top-ranked festivals by MovieMaker Magazine. Distributed by Gravitas Ventures, The Way We Speak is available to stream in the U.S. and Canada. Collider had the exclusive premiere of the film’s official trailer; The Way We Speak received additional coverage in outlets including Variety, Deadline, CBS, and KTLA.

Ian wrote and directed the award-winning short films Pinwheel Horizon, The Devil Needs a Fix, and From the Sky. Set on a distant planet, Pinwheel Horizon was described as a “powerful, thought-provoking piece that deserves to be seen” by Short Films Matter. American Cinematheque called Ian’s second short The Devil Needs a Fix “deliciously intriguing…a sophisticated dark comedy with an edge,” and Cinephilia & Beyond described the Arabic-language thriller From the Sky—the writer-director’s debut—as “an amazing and pioneering short film.”

Ian studied filmmaking at Seattle Film Institute and storytelling under Brian McDonald (Invisible Ink). He’s published interviews ranging from Actor Terence Stamp to New York Times’ Journalist & Historian Sam Tanenhaus.