There are certain moments, rarely experienced, that alone are worth living for—moments full of pulsating rhythms and beckoning melodies that reverberate from faraway lands, sunsets that seem to create new colors with every descent, waves that can hypnotize with their rhythmic tides, sand that can envelop your body and release it from the chaos of the world outside. I live for these ephemeral moments, and I do the best that I can to transfer them onto film.

In my short film, "Iemanja," the beauty of the beach is offset by an outside stressor: garbage. To be specific, the garbage of modern society, urban sprawl. As we project more into the future, it seems that those transcendental moments will become more scarce. The past, on the other hand, is associated with a certain purity. There were the primitive tribal songs that spoke about the simplest but most transcendent emotions: love, sorrow, happiness. There was the natural world, which laid largely untouched and was integral to humanity's survival; it was one with the human world. Now, there is a deep divide between both worlds, and it is only growing deeper. To me, nature and its purity is a world apart; if I don't preserve those moments of beauty in my art, I'm afraid they will be lost forever.

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