Filmmaker Statement

Fishbowl is a coming-of-age short film that explores the alienation from and transitory phase between the home one grows up in and the world one builds. It's within this transitory phase that perspectives shift and become scrutinized. The image of a fishbowl—a glass, transparent bowl that gives a seemingly unmediated view onto the housed subject within (a fish), yet in actuality warps said view via the reflections and refractions of the water and curvature—perfectly encapsulates this experience. Natalie's world, like that of the fish's, is held bare for the world to see, to comment upon, to judge. And yet, powerless to escape, the fish must look back. It is this exchange of looking and the power dynamics within these looks that Fishbowl attempts to convey and dig out. In this story, I find the same emotional resonance in my transition to adulthood and coming into my voice as an Asian American filmmaker.