It all started in 2016
Lessons from my first short film
2016 has been trending this month. It’s been a decade, and everyone is posting their 2016 throwbacks and calling 2026 the new 2016. Somehow, it became a bit of a benchmark year in recent history. It was undoubtedly an important year of my life too. The year I turned 16, the year I got my first actual camera, and the year I made my first short film. It was a difficult yet vital year for me. So instead of sharing some scary selfies of 15-year-old Talitha or some aesthetic flat-lays that were all the rage, I thought I’d share a bit about my first short film and how the driving force of my creativity has shifted since then.
I can’t remember how I came up with the basic idea for the film, Ineffable, but the main concept was ‘a young man with an old soul goes on a journey to express himself’. I worked with my friend Warwick Eccles to come up with an idea and a basic story. He is a musician and was dabbling in the saxophone at the time, so I presume that’s how we landed on that.
So before I knew how to write a script or plot out story beats or have an inciting incident or a climax, I wrote Ineffable. It’s barely a story and more an idea with visuals, but it meant something to me then and means something else entirely to me now. Luckily, Warwick was fully on board to perform and compose the music, and my dad was on board (maybe not as voluntarily) to be our driver and designated adult through it all. And so, we made a movie and even travelled across the country for part of it because I was obsessed with Cape Town at the time.
We submitted it to a few festivals and, truly miraculously, got into a festival in Centurion. It was amazing to be a part of something like that at that age. By that time, I was already onto making my next short film.
Ineffable is about self-expression. It’s about having a passion that focuses you, a passion that makes every other aspect of life fade away while you focus on it. Nothing else is important. The experience of creating, of playing your instrument, of playing just the right tune is truly cathartic. It feels like you’re able to channel all the emotions and thoughts flying around your head into that one place and feel truly free of it all. That’s what I was exploring in 2016. Through this film, I was trying to find that sweet spot. I was finally doing the thing I’ve been dreaming about since I was eleven, and was sure I would find myself in it.
Sadly, that’s not altogether true. I saw creating as a solution to the problem; it would give me a sense of purpose and possibly even heal me in the process. And yes, you can’t overlook how artists have been able to confront and process things within themselves and find relief in that. I’m not saying art doesn’t do that for the artist. However, I realised that if that relief is what I’m chasing in my creating, I can find myself in an endless cycle of striving to make something that will set me free and make me feel okay. Expressing yourself is good and important, but it doesn’t give you answers to your questions. If anything, it provides you with more questions.
The end of the film was meant to be triumphant. He has done it. Everything is right with the world as he plays his tune in the golden sunlight. But in actuality, it’s open-ended. What happened then? Well, we can assume that he started on his journey home. He couldn’t stay in that place, in that moment of catharsis. Although maybe I’m digging too deep into something that wasn’t that deep to begin with.
I found that my creativity is significantly more sustainable when my focus is outward. When I wonder at the world around me and use my gifts as worship to the Creator, when I try to magnify His name in the work I do, when I approach a project with a generous heart, seeking to serve and yield to greater wisdom and knowledge than my own.
As I’ve been writing this and remembering the making of Ineffable, I also find myself valuing its childlike nature. We didn’t know what we were doing. The story is not engaging in the way it should be. My script is all wrong. It doesn’t target a wide enough demographic. My camera clearly did not have stabilisation. Despite all this, Ineffable somehow feels more me than any of the films I made at film school. Since I’ve slowly started creating again, my work has become closer to what I started with in Ineffable tonally and stylistically. The essence is the same when it’s not jaded by formula or the pursuit of cinematic perfection.
There is value to knowledge and growing your skills, but I’m reminded of what Jesus values over that. Matthew 18:2-4 says, “And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, ‘Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.’”
I know that I’ll never create truly great work apart from God, but if I am to do it in partnership with Him, I must humble myself like a child and trust Him to carry it. I think some of the best work can flow out of a humble heart. This week, I want to do less striving in my work and more humbling myself before Him and what He wants to do through me.
A little bit about me.
Hi, I’m Talitha. I’m a Christian filmmaker and photographer from Cape Town, South Africa. I call myself a visual content creator because I dabble in all sorts of visual mediums. My favourite thing to do is to capture nature and my travels.