David Jacobs is a complex young man. A look at his first film — a 20-minute documentary titled Golden Mist — will tell you as much.

The film premiered this month to two standing-room-only showings at Lincoln Road’s Alliance Theater on Miami Beach. Each of the 300-plus-member audiences gave Jacobs a long and loud applause after viewing his film.

It is not so much what the film is about as it is what it tries to say. In essence, the film captures youth’s assessment of age and the meaning of life with the examination of an 83-year-old man’s devotion to the long-ago construction of his coral rock house in South Florida.

The black-and-white film has no script or narration and uses a mix of natural sound interviews with the subject, Harry Troeger, and several authority figures to carry the montage of sights and sounds. The film is interspersed with music and the superimposed philosophy of John Muir and Ralph Waldo Emerson. The silhouetted image of a woman dancing to the music of a sitar between two stands of palm trees captures the passage of time.

Jacobs said he meant for the 22-minute film to illustrate the inter-connectiveness of all people and their ability to take control of their lives to advance themselves.

Jacobs, 24, lives in Pinecrest with his parents, Eric and Gayle. He attended Pinecrest Elementary, Southwood Middle School and graduated from Palmetto Senior High in 1994. He went on to Northwestern University, where he graduated in 1998 with a degree in Radio and Television.

"I’d love to make another film," he said. "But, there’s lots more I need to know and I have to gain more experience. I don’t know, I may work with a production company for awhile."

Will he concentrate on the documentary genre or will he make a move into the feature film market?

"Who knows?" he said candidly. "The road is open to me at the moment. Whatever my heart tells me to do, I’ll do it."

Heartstrings aside, next up for Jacobs is a trip to the Big Apple on Sept. 9, where his film has landed a position in the prestigious New York International Independent Film Festival. Golden Mist will be shown at New York’s Club Ohm on Sept. 18.