31/July

good grief

August awaits, Leo (my) season has yanked us with full force out of Cancerian malaise and into the titillating thralls of the lion’s discothèque. Irrespective of my astrological positioning, the fog has yet to clear; endorphins suppressed by the persistent crab’s claw. As an August baby, historically summer was my yearly peak - drive-in movie theaters, summer reading lists, ice cream parlors, days spent lounging in the sun’s mirage - all a build up in anticipation to the long awaited birthday. Always a pool party, always a Dairy Queen ice cream cake, always a slew of photographs displaying my late summer too-bronzed skin. The peak continued into adulthood, adding illicit pleasures into the mix - sweaty nights in New York soaked in rosé, the seeming endless existence of time.

As I shifted into the life of a filmmaker, summers took on a different, exotic flavor. Cookies & Cream became Black Sesame. Summers were not for leisurely passing of time; they were for writing screenplays and making my films. Who cares about a birthday when the Sundance & SXSW deadlines await in September? For the record, not I.

In four years, this is the first summer I have not touched a screenplay or a camera. Creative pursuits have been replaced with fundraising for my first feature film. A necessary sacrifice and milestone in the journey of every filmmaker. There is no time to float above the clouds, constructing scenarios or build a character-driven bespoke wardrobe. Time is spent in excel sheet paralysis, plugging in numbers and perpetual “follow ups”. It’s uncanny to first experience “ghosting” professionally, rather than romantically.

Logic aside, I find myself asking, “Am I still a filmmaker if I’m not producing films? These questions of self-doubt have evolved into an overwhelming and predominant feeling of grief - my word of summer. Grief is one of those complex, non-linear emotions that can be misconstrued or tucked into other emotions - anger, frustration, sadness. As artists, our time is cyclical - an endless loop of financing and creating. Martyrs for our work, we take the sword to our chests again and again. Feelings rationalized, then compartmentalized as we have no other choice but to trudge forward, hoping for the best.

I haven’t figured out a viable solution to coping with artistic grief. Perversely, it’s facing the very source of these emotions that calms my nervous system. Nearly every day in July I watched a film, sometimes two. I have ventured across genres, nations, time periods, searching for answers, clues as to how one emerges from grief. What I have found are not answers or guidance, but rather an affirmation that I am where I need to be and indeed a filmmaker.

1. Silent Friend (2025) - Ildikó Enyedi

In an act of desperation, I succumbed to the dire pits of the Angelika Theater to see Silent Friend and save me did it ever. Silent Friend is a triptych centering around a ginko tree on a college campus in Germany. Through each chapter, the tree spans around varying time periods (1908, 1972, and 2020 COVID lockdown), signifying the mysterious and powerful forces of the natural world and its capacity, when welcomed, to provide relief to the human existence. It reminded me of the Japanese practice of shinrin-yoku - bathing oneself in a forest to immerse the senses in nature.

2. Dreams (Oslo Trilogy) - Dag Johan Haugerud

Per my last post, my Norwegian summer persists. What started with Oslo, August 31st , evolved into a full on consumption of two of Vigdis Hjorth’s novels and all three films in Dag Johan Haugerud’s Oslo Trilogy (why did he copy Joachim Trier?). Dreams is the third film after Love and Sex. Like children, I loved each in their own unique, quirky way. As their titles suggest, each focuses on their respective topics but are not confined to them, expanding on the layers beneath these seemingly one dimensional constructs. Dreams follows a young teenage girl who develops a crush on her female teacher, evolving in a deep internal longing and a diary-novel. What I loved about Dreams and the general Norwegian cultural immersion was the ubiquitous failure to communicate and inability to express desires. How much is said by the unsaid?

3. Better Than Me (2016) - Blood Orange

Many moons ago, a year out of college, living in Bushwick, I tragically fell in love with Blood Orange after hearing his score to Gia Coppola’s Palo Alto (quintessential indie). For years after, Champagne Coast played on repeat; Dev Hynes the voice of my early twenties spent flittering between New York and Los Angeles - always tinted with a bit of melodrama. Hynes’ marriage of 80’s synth, R&B and orchestral composition always felt like an amalgamation of my favorite musical styles and often performed with contemporary ballet. I only recently saw the music video to Better Than Me; feet taps engrained into my earlobes.

4. Full Moon in New York (1989) - Stanley Kwon

Another masochistic theatrical plunge, I saw Full Moon in New York at MoMa this week as apart of their “Immigrant Nation” series. Full Moon in New York is apart of the genre of “New York Hong Kong films” - Hong Kong based filmmakers who set their films in New York and feature prominent Hong Kong actors (à la Maggie Cheung). Full Moon in New York represents exactly how I see my vision as a filmmaker. Multilingual stories that cross the American Dream (what is more American Dream than New York City in the 80s?) with immigrant groups and use this as a vehicle to weave in specific cultural textures and history, but still maintain a nuanced subtly, not falling victim to didacticisms.

in the shadows of Federico García Lorca, Rioja, Spain