θλίψη - Affliction

On the left you have access to the full short film. On the right is a deleted scene from the film that I believe highlights the tone and atmosphere that I originally intended as a whole much more heartfully than the film itself.

A man who is paranoid and deluded by his own conspiracies that someone out there is after him must come to terms with the root of his suffering.

Thlípsi tells the story of a man battling through his psychotic hallucinations and bizarre, although to an extent fairly rational— disconnects from the society he lives in.

Inspired heavily by the likes of Blade Runner 2049, Vanilla Sky, and many other sci-fi paranoia conspiracy thrillers about control and reality, Thlípsi was a representation of my lifelong anxiety and tendency to run away/avoid a lot of my problems.
Constantly living in a daze and somehow expecting myself to make it out of the maze.

Despite the chaos this film was to produce and shoot, involving nearly winging everything with my roomate for 6 hour overnight shoots; odysseying through the late night landscapes of New York City in the freezing cold, I still think it states a recurring theme of disconnection and reconnection that'll be prevalent in my work for the rest of my life.

Enjoy the full film above. I one day intend to expand this vision into a heartbreaking depiction of the nature of psychosis and its interconnections to deeper understandings of reality.