Filmmaker Statement

Right from the very beginning, my goal with this film was simple: to give a voice to the largely voiceless population of people who have survived - and are still surviving - prolonged solitary confinement. To give audiences a glimpse into life in this sunken, subterranean world. I first began researching this project in 2020. Over the next two years, I conducted dozens of conversations with survivors of solitary confinement. Despite significant differences in many of their accounts, quite a number of these survivors told me something surprising:they explained that in order to survive the harrowing reality of their daily existence, they began to construct elaborate, sensory-rich worlds in their own imaginations. Although I’d seen other films about the horrors of solitary confinement, this was something I’d never seen explored before. I realised there was something deeply tragic - but also beautifully human - about this surprising revelation.