My Ideas

Tuesday February 3, 2026

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 My project will deal with major mental health issues intertwined with the coming-of-age genre. I wanted to do something that could move audiences and that I could execute well. I have had experience with mental health issues through loved ones, so I have seen and know just how much of a toll it can take on a person. 

My film will follow a high school girl consumed by her lovers death. The unfortunate events of his death unfolded before their graduation. Through this already hard time in her life, she finds herself slipping into the memories instead of facing the event head on. She is blaming herself for the tragedy and is reliving it through her dreams and everyday life. That sudden shift from adolescence to adulthood is already a huge thing, but adding the death of her boyfriend adds to the severity of the situation. It is still stuck in her head and she can’t climb out of the despair and grief. Through this, I want it to be something that people can connect to and feel. I will entitle my piece “Is He Breathing?” to subtle hint at the way in which he died. He let his mind take control and ended his life on his own accord, having her find him dead in the forest.

I want to utilize a flashback in time sequence that will provide context as to what happened. The main focus of the film will be on the girl and the toll that her boyfriends death has on her, even if he's not on screen. The flashback scenes will showcase the love that they had for each other up until the tragedy, and in having this sequence seemingly happen in her dreams, it provides the sense that this event is bleeding into the one place where she should have the ability to escape to. It is consuming her entire being and it makes audiences feel that sheer pain that she is still holding onto. The story cuts very deep, but I feel that I have a great understanding of the emotions that I want to portray through the characters.

In a way, along with my film being a coming-of-age story, I want to incorporate some character vs. self into it. As mentioned before, the death of her boyfriend is eating her alive and it is conflicting with her everyday life and within that I feel like there is a bit of self conflict involved. Even with his death being the forefront of the story, there is a bit of a dispute going on within herself. In her blaming herself for what happened, it is really important to show that to the audience because it is a real thing that happened when dealing with a situation as hard and deep as the one I want to portray.