Filmmaker Statement

"Evergreen" is a film born from my four-year journey at NYU, where I grew not only as a person but also as a filmmaker. The inception of this project was driven by my desire to delve into a subject often shrouded in silence. Having witnessed the impact of self-harm among young men, a topic scarcely addressed in cinema, I was compelled to bring this issue to light in a manner that respects its complexity. The artistic choices in "Evergreen" were deliberate in their intention to reflect the intricate nature of the subject. The use of lenses with significant barrel distortion was a conscious decision to impart a dreamlike quality to the film, mirroring the blurred lines between reality and perception often experienced in trauma. The narrative structure of the film is non-linear, open to interpretation, and intertwined with an underlying ambiguous trauma, mirroring the often non-linear journey of coping with and understanding one’s past.