Diaries, Notes, and Sketches

A personal documentary questioning the ways in which family imposed narratives force us into roles that we spend our lives either rebelling against or conforming to.

A short documentary project that attempts to encapsulate what it looks and feels like to be an American Teenager in 2022.

This short experimental diary film reveals my struggles with mental illness in my adolescence and queer adulthood while simultaneously reflecting upon my joyous childhood experiences. I investigate when and how my depression began and explain that my relationships with the people I love have supported me through my harder times. The film incorporates footage shot over May and June 2023 and archival home videos. Overall, I aim to resolve my "growing pains" through the medium of diary film and by reconnecting with my younger self.

Jonas Mekas assembles 160 portraits, appearances, and fleeting sketches of underground and independent filmmakers captured between 1955 and 1996. Fast-paced and archival in spirit, the film celebrates the avant-garde as its own “nation of cinema,” a vital community existing outside the dominance of commercial film.

This short, started early on into sobriety, finished about nine months in, is a collage of diaries and notes, collected from within addiction and into recovery.