Images are very seductive. When paired with music, they can capture one’s attention, evoking a sense of longing or wonder. For unknown states of minds, or evend different lives. We try to find, or even to define ourselves within that illusion.

The moments I attempt to capture in my projects are closely related to the feelings I have either experienced or avoided to live through consciously in my daily life. When framed within a film project, they become somewhat significant. Although movies should entertain, be liked, inspire, or whatever, that’s not necessarily my goal. The truth is, during the time when these projects were made, filmmaking was a narcissistic endeavor for me. It was about standing out and portraying reality as idealized as possible. Obviously, that was naive.

Once I understood the pettiness of my intentions, I stopped. I rejected “artistic” filmmaking, just as I had rejected actual reality before that. Because no matter what I did, whether shooting on 35mm Kodak Film, using the latest Arri Camera, working with professional actors and experienced crew members, studying where my idol David Lynch studied, meeting Hollywood stars, and being in the VIP rooms of film festivals… I always had a nagging feeling that something was not right. Something missing. I was not the name on my business card or the sole creator of a film project. I was not like the directors I admired. I didn’t even agree with how they lived and acted in their personal lives. I didn’t belong to that group. So, after trying for 20 years to be a part of the film industry, I finally asked the most uncomfortable question there is: “Who am I, really?”

As a child, I escaped into the world of movies. During young adulthood, I was immersed totally in what we call “Film History.” I thought I knew it all, about life. Yet, what I’ve seen were only concepts about life, from strangers. All those people who inspired me were clueless themselves when working on their projects. Therefore, when I finished film school, I knew nothing about life. My ambition was stronger than my awareness of what was happening right around me. Movies, or rather “illusions,” became what I had bet my life on, something without a solid foundation. This became evident when I needed to start earning money with fictional stories.

However, when I moved away from artistic experiments and entered the real world, I encountered the same delusions in people. The only difference was, in the real world, money counts. Within the artistis idealistic version of reality, it’s the ego, who tries to become the controller of the mechanics of life. The corporate world, as we can find it in advertisment or TV is no different from Hollywood. Within those structures, every aspect of youth is exploited by utopian idealism. Money, its metaphor. Understanding this turned me into a bitter person. So much so that everything I had done in my life, all the projects for which I sacrificed my precious youth, became meaningless. I had lost myself.

Not only a depression followed, but also a life-threatening operation on my eye, the most important body part of the filmmaker. Here I was, gambled my life for some success in the movie industry and right at the moment where I should work the hardest, I was not allowed by fate. When facing death, I asked myself what I regretted in life, if everything I had done so far was truly pointless. To my surprise, the answer was “No. Nothing of it was pointless.” It was exactly what I needed to do! The ambition to create illusions for humanity was actually my personal way of getting closer to the reality of life. Life is by nature an illusory celebration of whatever happens in the present moment, an awareness that constantly renews itself.

Movies are not about showing us how to live our lives. Or even worse, making us identify with a character’s mental or emotional state. They are at best mapping out possible routes for the psyche. Movies are like life itself. They serve as a metaphor for consciousness, and yet they are consciousness itself.

“The observer is the observed.”