Feeling is an act of Rebellion 

Well, well, well… here we are, in 2026. We got through COVID, we’re somehow pushing through the files… and we’re combatting, or endorsing Artificial “Intelligence”. If the world we’re living in isn’t an overly complicated, over dramatic movie plot where Michael Bay is plotting his pyrotechnics any moment, what is?

Now this may not be the article you’re looking for here, but it’s the one I’m called to write. So consider this a rebellion against what is being asked of me…

There was a time it felt like the world was healing. Body positivity was on the rise, diversity was crucial, people felt their voices were meant to be heard. And now we’re living in Ozempic’s take over and people preferring silence and moral ambiguity to just “make it through”.

Bones are the latest fad, cartoon fruit falling in love is the most gripping thing on the internet, and people scroll mindlessly, laughing at the relatability of how fucked everything is, and it’s stops there.

“What can we do about it?”

“It’s the way the world is going. Might as well move with the times and use it to your advantage. It’s the new way of things.” As if we are expected to just accept an incoming worldwide water shortage, a body image crisis, a world crumbling quicker than ever before. It’s so much easier to look at a screen that burns through your brain cells than to fight against anything. Let alone as an artists, digesting the fact that the “industry” is prioritizing making vertical, short form content, to appeal to the rotting mind.

Being an artist, a film maker, a story teller today is truly an act of rebellion.

What’s got me excited for cinema?

What’s got anyone excited today? It feels like a pool of dread that we’re all supposed to numb out.

Well… personally, I’m looking forward to the art from real artists, independant artists, art with integrity that says “fuck you” to everything that threatens individuality, creativity, originality, and real fucking cinema.

What is real cinema? What makes something really good, really worth watching and talking about? Something that sticks with you for a lifetime?

Lots of people would say a stellar, emotional performance, or an aesthetically mesmerizing film; a soundscape that rings in your soul. All of these things are correct, and make for a perfect cinematic experience. But if you dig deeper what is at the core of all of these elements? What do these things do to the human condition?

They make you feel.

When people discuss any portion of cinema, it is because they felt something, somewhere, in their human body.

Today we are fighting against numbing it all out. Scroll, scroll, scroll so fast you laugh one minute, cry the next, then laugh again until hours have gone by and you forget where you started.

Feeling, is an act of rebellion against that. Feeling opens up a dialogue, a concern, a conversation. It beckons you to reflect on something real and crucial. It is the essence of all art and why it is so dire that we keep creating, keep storytelling.

We create because we feel.

We write because we feel something inside that we need to get out. We make it because we feel it too, and desire to pass the gift of feeling to whoever might see it in it's final form. That is human connection, happening through the lens of cinema. That is the essence of humanity.

A director plays with light and shadows to capture the feeling of the story, the editor takes the pieces and puts them together in a way that captures the feeling of how the story should be received visually. The audience buys their tickets and shares their popcorn so they can experience feeling together.

It is an act of rebellion in 2026 to call yourself an artists of any kind, because you are directly going against the grain of what the “big guys” are pushing forward. What’s easiest is going with the stream, staying small and digestible, being frail physically and emotionally so you stay malleable enough for others' agenda and points of view to seep into your bones, so you don’t take too much space, so you don’t have the energy to ask questions that will ruffle feathers, to have a stance of any kind, because there’s always someone that’s going to be upset.

Why don’t we fucking upset them then? God bless someone who gets upset, or ruffled or bothered. That is feeling! That is a conversation to be had, a connection to fight for!

WHY WONT WE LET OURSELVES GET FUCKING UPSET? GET FURIOUS? GET ENRAGED?!

I dare it I beg it, I demand there be rage.

The state of the world needs it.

And I don’t mean violence. I mean a rage that pushes one to state “this makes me angry and I’m not okay with it. I’m so un-okay with it that I’m going to do everything in my power to move towards changing it”.

Under the rage is feeling. Sadness, need, desire, joy.

Rage is a valueable feeling in itself. It is enough to start.

Feeling is the essence of our humanity and we cannot shy away from it now, just because it hurts. There are no bandaids. Just bleeding. Bleeding out for the art.

I am excited to bleed. To tear out my heart and show it to the world with my work, and I am even more excited to watch the artists around me feel that need, and do the same.

My excitement in cinema is a war cry, a mission statement, a calling, a fight.

We may be losing faith in Hollywood, but down here, the indie artists on the rise are the future of cinema, and I hope to help water the root of rebellion within my community, with any and every piece that I create.

We decide the future of the industry, the future of art, the future of our planet.

I ask, I beg, I cry that we keep fighting for feeling. It is the only thing that will save us. We can reach wider audiences with our art when we remember it’s true purpose.

It isn’t one film or one filmmaker that I’m excited about. It’s the collective consciousness of the independant artists in my community feeling the effects of what the world is trying to to do us, and making art against it.

And I still do have faith… I refuse to not have any. I believe there are artists higher up, that want the same thing. That desire truth, that desire feeling.

So I’m excited to see true, integral cinema on big screens, on small screens, hearing it in music, reading it in articles, papers, essays, and making it my damn self. All it takes is one, but I believe I’d be hard done by to find many that disagree. I have faith in my community, in my peers, and I believe in art. I do.

How else does the world come together? I challenge you to give me another answer. What is one thing that every single living being on planet earth is capaable of doing?

Feeling.

Plants feel, animals feels, bugs feel, bacteria feels…

Human beings are innately designed to feel. The world has done a marvellous job at trying to cancel that out, and that’s where art comes in.

Sometimes they just need a reminder.

We can do that much, can’t we?

We can try.

We must.

Feel.