Schadenfreude—a German word meaning joy derived from another’s misfortune—served as the conceptual backbone of this project. It began with a desire to work with analog film, a medium I never actually got to shoot with due to its high cost, rarity, and time-consuming process. What you’re seeing here is a kind of demo—a glimpse into what the project could have been.

The core idea was to acquire a 16mm film camera and shoot footage with the sole intent of destroying it. I wanted to create visuals meant purely for the viewer’s pleasure, while I, behind the scenes, underwent a grueling, frustrating process—essentially torturing myself for the sake of the audience’s enjoyment. As a proof of concept, I experimented on a roll of 16mm film salvaged from the dusty archive of one of my film professors. I defaced it with Sharpies, blades, and a lighter—embracing destruction as both aesthetic and method.