As I prepare for my upcoming trip to Czechia, I am thinking about the interdisciplinary possibilities of using stop-motion animation, costume, and experimental cinematography to enhance the humor and horror in a film. With my upcoming short film, Garbage Future, which I’ll create at the Prague Film School, I aim to convey the profound impact of garbage on the world, revealing through magical realism and satire how prioritizing production and consumption accelerates both the physical and the spiritual destruction of humanity. I have also applied for the opportunity to present an AI media workshop at FAB25 Czechia. With this trip and these projects, I am stepping into creative landscapes that support intellectual exploration and creative autonomy. These projects represent my commitment to lovingly challenge while creating community and exploring the joys of storytelling.
My environment profoundly shapes my creative identity and professional trajectory. The oppressive social-organizational-political pressures I've experienced as America moves in a fascist direction have intensified my desire to find a cultural landscape that values artistic dissent. Prague, with its rich history of cultural resistance, offers a compelling alternative to the brutal environment of the American media production scene (the normalization of mental and verbal abuse, the trivialization of unsafe working conditions, the exploitation of below-the-line labor with 12+ hour days, 6 days a week). Through this journey abroad, I aim to develop my film production practice as a medium of critical dialogue, as opposed to a military scurmish that uses exploitive measures to get the job done, resulting in a sterile and commercial product. I am seeking to transform recent personal challenges into accessible stories of connection and compassion, while maintaining a spirit of critical thought and analysis. I hope through this experience I will help develop my resistance and skills to effectively use the medium as a means to resist, reinvent, and speak truth to power, while personally striving to maintain my humanity and desire to connect.
Prague represents resilience. Filmmakers like Věra Chytilová and Karel Zeman turned limitations into creative breakthroughs, using restrictions to push the boundaries of the medium's language and develop new tools. Their legacy speaks to something I deeply believe in: storytelling has the power to transcend, whether it be physics or societal norms. This is the narrative I am aligning with as I shape my experience moving forward as a filmmaker, proletarian, educator, student, revolutionary, politician, civilian, lover of animals, artist, and advocate for the environment.
My path hasn’t been traditional. I am a lifelong learner, a lover of education, and I have been in one institution of learning or another since kindergarten. My love was unchallenged until my experience in an MFA Film Production Program. While there, I gained valuable experiences, but I also faced a system that, rather than nurturing creativity and supporting the artist, functioned for me as a dehumanizing bootcamp. It became clear that for some, my approach didn’t align with their system, and they had the power. This pushed me to revise what my creative journey could look like and to seek spaces that embraced diversity and allowed for challenging expression, where higher education may not.
For me, Prague embodies a model of film production where creativity itself is an act of freedom—one that respects and amplifies voices that challenge and evolve narratives. Filmmakers here have historically used their art to call attention to unjust systems and to create when silence felt like the easier option. For me, storytelling in Prague becomes a personal act of resistance, an opportunity to develop a practice on my own terms, one that I intend to carry forward in my work.
This journey is about rediscovering my voice and creating a more humane film production process for myself. Through projects like AI-assisted storytelling, I hope to foster pathways for those who’ve been left behind by traditional systems of information and access, as well as to make space for more inclusive, equitable storytelling.
I’m not just seeking collaboration—I’m offering a vision of creativity that is unapologetically human, evolving, and respectful. I believe we must dismantle the elitism and hierarchies that stifle the potential of so many creators and instead create environments where transparency, collaboration, freedom, respect, and varied perspectives can thrive.
I invite you to join me in remembering why we tell stories—to connect with one another—and to reimagine a more humane future of media production.