ELIZABETH

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

The summer before the script, I watched my father suffer bouts of amnesia, spurred by a debilitating sadness for my mother leaving him. A true addict of Nostalgia, he is plagued by memories of my mother, whose presence remains “like a ghost in the house,” as he says. While I thought I was losing my father, I was fighting my way out of an abusive seven-year relationship. Only twenty-one at the time, a change like that inverted my world. If this wasn’t enough to unspool any tethers to my present, I was simultaneously chasing a beloved meth addict around New York City, fighting fate to keep him alive. Though puffy and teary, my eyes opened to the seemingly endless cycle of addiction, which is so often fueled by a core memory of lovelessness. Crouching by dumpsters and crying into the Hudson, the first glimmers of MIRAGE took form.

At first in real life and then through my script, I studied the place of memory in intimate relationships. MIRAGE explores the isolation that stems from a misalignment between our inner world and the world we share with others. It explores the odyssey of leaving a toxic relationship and the addictive nature of clinging to the past.

Looking back, I can see that MIRAGE saved me. Working from morning until night, day after day, toward the creation of this film pulled me out of a dark chapter. For the first time, I witnessed how making a movie can solidify reality into something magical and eternal. MIRAGE helped me find beauty in ugliness, and the process of making it turned me into a strong, dedicated, inspiring leader. I know I will reflect on this first short film as one of the most formative experiences of my filmmaking life. It changed me. It hazed me. It roughed me up and then smoothed over the edges. It lit a fire that I won’t put out.