SAMUEL CORREA

Director’s statement

We are drawn to stories because they help us make sense of things that don’t fully make sense on their own.

When I moved to the United States at nine years old, home stopped being a place and became something I carried with me. A memory. A feeling I kept trying to return to, even as my surroundings changed. As a kid, I didn’t question where I belonged. Friendships were easy. The world felt open. But over time, that shifted. I became more aware of the space around me and how immigrant communities are seen. It was crazy to realize how certain environments hold you at a distance without ever saying it directly. I didn’t have the language for that. I just felt it.

I remember fragments more than full days. I was often left alone in places meant for fun. There’s a specific kind of loneliness in those environments. When everything around you suggests belonging, but you experience it from a distance. You begin to understand yourself through a quiet observation of everything around you. David is encountering that for the first time. Not through something dramatic, but through something quiet. A gradual awareness that the world around him, and his place within it, might not fully align.

I approached the film by staying close to him. Letting the camera observe rather than explain. Allowing sound, texture, and small moments to carry meaning. The environment becomes emotional language.