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In Memoriam is a film that deals with the concepts of how a person’s lived experience is related to their personal identity. This is achieved as we observe a woman being subjected to a novel form of psychological blackmail – she has to reveal information about her resistance group to a government agent, or she will lose all her important memories one by one.

This film was my first attempt at directing. Usually I’m behind the camera as a stills-photographer, but have always wanted to make the leap into directing film. What started out as a trip to Cali, Colombia for my girlfriend’s birthday (she is originally from Cali and served as the producer for this film), evolved into a photography project exploring the world of salsa culture in the “capital of salsa dancing,” and then eventually morphed into a larger documentary film production.

I feel that directing this documentary was a natural progression from shooting stills, since my images tend to explore different cultures and my interactions with subjects share a common goal of trying to portray people in a natural, open, and enthusiastic way. Also, I felt like in this case, still-photography simply wasn’t multi-dimensional enough to properly portray both the energy and the subtlety that exists within the dance culture (the music, the movement, the voices etc).

The entire process was extremely challenging: it was difficult learning to think in a much more narrative way when compared to stills photography as well as obviously learning about the technical aspects of filming, sound-recording and editing. Also, not being fluent in Spanish, it was very challenging to both direct and navigate many of the post-production elements of this project. It was a very ambitious first film that required me to put most of my savings into production fees and to ask many favors from my generous and talented friends. However challenging the production was, it turned out to be equally as rewarding and I’m very grateful to all of the people I met along the way who helped make this thing come to life!

“Grief arises as a product of a loss that we have experienced. It could stem from a person’s health, relationship, job, and loved ones. We may not be able to describe the wave of emotions, yet we do know that we are not ourselves. In the short film Pain Is The Agent Of Change. Tristien Marcellous Winfree tackles how we look at, unblock, wrestle with, and shed light on the distance and detach from our on own personal pain. The arts can heal us by giving these bits and pieces the attention they deserve and need. There is so much power in talking about it. We should be able to talk about mental health, we should be able to talk childhood trauma, and we should be able to talk about grief, but as a culture we shy away from the uncomfortable conversations. This an opportunity to learn from others who spoke, who fought to be heard, and the need be felt. Each time that we engage in the process using the arts, we give ourselves a break, a breath, and a reprieve from the pain that we face as culture.”