Auto Portrait/Self Portrait Post Partum

SPPP is an autobiographical experimental film exploring the ramifications of the devastating breakup of a romantic relationship. The film examines my own emotional responses in the context of how this experience is culturally represented. Painstakingly handmade, the visual and sound treatments evoke different phases of the relationship (from passionate attachment to escalating conflict to inexplicable breakup) and the various phases of the grieving process – from denial, to yearning, to anger, to final liberation: a healing release effected through the making of this film. A triptych of self-portraits-entire camera rolls, each subjected to different methods of extreme interventions on the celluloid itself-are presented in a series of tableaux punctuated by quotes reflecting on romantic love scratched into the filmstrip. These, along with the sound, are employed as a form of meta-commentary simultaneously foregrounding and deconstructing conventional representations of love, which not only represent but also influence our contemporary experience of the same.