TALIA was a paired project for my first-year smartphone filmmaking module — a short documentary-style film shot and edited entirely on a phone. It's built around an interview with Talia, a young artist, reflecting on her relationship with social media: the way platforms like Instagram and Pinterest let creatives network, find opportunities and build community, set against the harms — comparison, insecurity, body image and the toll it can take on mental health.

 

Told almost entirely through the interface of a phone, the film leans into the constraints of the smartphone brief — screen recording, on-screen messages and handheld footage carrying the argument rather than staged dialogue. It closes on her own advice for anyone struggling: step back, mute the feeds that hurt, and stop measuring yourself against everyone else.