Filmmaker Interview for “Our Glass Heart”
Our Glass Heart
Director: Anny Jimenez Abreu (USA)
Periodically sighted at a riverside park, a wistful young woman writes to no-one, shallowly soothing an ache she dreads to face. Yet in time, her own words drift back towards her, allowing deeper reflection, reminders of the place she’s truly missing, and a call to return to things she thought would be better buried.
Narrative – Student
Director Bio: Anny Jimenez Abreu
Something about senior year of high school compelled me back to the Media Studies class I had skipped returning to as a junior. However, at first I felt stilted. But in that struggle to find what was missing, I found myself. It wasn’t something I consciously decided, but I knew somewhere that if I was to make anything worthwhile with the time I had left, it needed to be truly “me”, if nothing else. It was through the creation of “Our Glass Heart” that I finally found myself
What drew you to create this film?
I needed an idea that made use of the locales close to me. I wanted an idea that made use of memories close to me. To put it clearly now: Our Glass Heart is a vague, exaggerated retelling of my own experience with moving away from the East Coast to the Midwest. I took my love & longing for real ocean beaches, plus the moving crate of my most sentimental belongings which remained unopened under my desk for over 2 years, and turned them into key inanimate subjects to guide the story around. Though I never made messages-in-bottles to dump into rivers, I did “bottle up” my feelings more often back then & only managed to preserve them through a steady habit of journaling. I hoped those metaphors would speak enough in the absence of dialogue –I’m not one to be very plainspoken and that extends to my style of art. However, I do realize that it has come out as the kind of art piece that doesn’t click with anyone who doesn’t personally tap into the mood it tries to instill, the “feeling over function” kind. But I for one have always appreciated those sorts of movies. Our Glass Heart succeeds in representing me, and it invests most of itself into expressing something. That’s what I wanted most.
What does filmmaking mean to you?
Art is expression, art is connection, and art is exertion. Filmmaking is a form of art I’m frequently on the fringes of, but that feels almost incomprehensibly grand to me. It’s the biggest and most elaborate method of storytelling possible in modern times. The sheer amount of manpower, the range of skills, the organization & resources that a full-length movie demands which is somehow still too seldom understood? The precious moments that can come from immersing yourself in the dark in front of a big screen, isolated from the world yet taking in an extra-vivid reflection of it? It fully deserves to be called “movie magic”… My cinematic knowledge is still too small! I need to expand my library, and with it my appreciation of life itself.
What advice would you give students or beginners that want to make films?
Based on most pervasive shortcoming I dealt with, one that can be applied to both the practical and sentimental aspects: Be vocal about your vision. Put your whole heart into it. Trust your team with it. They can perform their best when they understand what you see in it, and they can’t understand what it means to you if you don’t tell or show them. Try not to be like me, the director too timid to direct, settling too many shots with a “that works, I guess”. I know it may in your best interest for time & the group’s sanity to not futz around all persnickety for 20 takes, but allowing yourself to be particular where it counts most will make sure that impact is felt. Plus, the more you practice being clear & specific about the goals of scenes & how to reach them, the less time they should take for everyone to get right.
What films do you watch again and again?
My bias for animated movies has to come through here, since being someone who draws as my most regular creative outlet besides simply writing compels me to observe animation carefully more than anything; Spiderman: Across the Spiderverse still stands as my most intensely enjoyed movie of recent times, that I will never get tired of.
Though with this question, I also must cite the many animated shorts I’ve watched as my most common experience with student short films before the class, that inspired my work here more directly. For the few that come to mind now: Fuelled by Killedthecat Productions is another silent story I’m very familiar with, Under This Luminous Sky by Emily Xu (Emilyyamiao) I’ve watched and listened to the tracks of often for comfort, and Birdsong by Michelle Chang (lemoncholy) I’ve been revisiting recently because its visual design & subject tug at my heart in so, so many ways.
Our Glass Heart will screen during the Regional Filmmaker screening on Saturday the 19th. Reception starts at 6pm and the films screen at 7!
