Antonia Tomic
she/her
BA
MD
At the beginning, I had sooo many ideas. I had to cut back a lot. It felt like peeling an onion. On the one hand, I cried a lot. On the other hand, what was left became much sharper. My brain is an idea machine. It generates and generates and generates, but it struggles to sort things or filter them out. I hate concept work. Oh my God, my brain is not made for this. It was such a huge pile. So much uncertainty, so much to organize and do. What really helped me was keeping my eyes on my feet, taking the next small step, and trusting that another one would follow after that. It helped to ask people for help and to keep talking kindly to myself (thanks to therapy). I realized that it's completely normal to feel this challenged when you're simultaneously the screenwriter, director, cinematographer, prop designer and producer, and that I don't have to — and can't — achieve perfection in every area. At first, I was way too hard on myself, but then I basically ended up experiencing, on a meta level, exactly what my film is about, haha. Self-acceptance, man!!! Be gentle, patient and loving <3
Between Longing and Being
Poetic shortfilm the feeling of alienation from oneself
I have always looked into the mirror and rarely liked what I saw. What I saw never matched the image I carried in my mind—I desperately wanted something else to be there. Something closer to society's ideals of beauty? A mind that wasn't so scattered and could think in a straighter line? Something that felt more acceptable? When we compare something to something entirely different, and those two worlds don't fit together, something happens: what is actually there begins to disappear. Peace turns into a hostile struggle with ourselves, and the battlefield becomes the present moment. I have fought this battle with myself on many levels—physically, mentally, and emotionally. I wanted to look different, function differently, and perhaps most tragically, I wanted to feel differently. In one way or another, every person carries this same struggle, day after day, often without even realizing it. With this film, I want to explore this fundamental aspect of the human experience, and especially of growing up. Why do we chase things that we do not embody? Why do we compare what is to something else, only to judge it afterward? And what might be hidden deep within us that we overlook while constantly striving for something outside ourselves?
- mail antonia.tomic@web.de
- insta @COSMAID
Begleitet durch Prof. Henning Tietz und Seinab Danboos M.A.
