The original idea for The Invisibles came over ten years ago, after my wife and I went through the trauma of losing a child, then the slow but eventually empowering process of getting back on our feet. In the beginning, I had a strange relationship with my grief. At first, it consumed me. I started living in a self destructive Groundhog Day-like existence, and at a certain point I denied that the tragedy had occurred at all. Living in that denial disconnected me so far from the world that at a certain point, I started feeling like I was disappearing. I would go out into the world, but I would feel like people weren’t seeing me. That I was becoming invisible.

As an exercise, I started going back through my life and noting moments when I had felt invisible. I realized that there were many, and that they always came from an emotional place. Eventually, I forced myself out of my self-centred misery by looking back out at the world. I started focusing on other people, and how they went through their own life challenges. I started talking to people who had different experiences, came from different backgrounds, and from different generations. What was fascinating was that every person I spoke to expressed that same experience of feeling invisible at various points in their lives. They expressed it in different ways; overlooked, neglected, not heard, feeling irrelevant, etc. But they all shared similarities that were reassuring. It meant that these feelings (and the premise of this story) were universal. Now we are at a time and place in the world, where the physical and emotional distance of going through a pandemic, social media, etc., has increased these feelings for many people, and it has further challenged our feelings of connection to the world and to each other.

There are many films I’ve seen in my life that left me feeling profoundly changed, that made me feel a deeper connection to the people and the world around me. An Angel at my Table, The Fisher King, Amores Perros, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Moonlight. They all gave that to me by exploring human emotions on a deeper level than most films ever do. They challenged the viewer to think deeper about our emotional world. Why emotions drive us much more than our intellect. Why, despite wanting to avoid emotional pain, allowing ourselves to feel things, including painful things, makes us feel more alive. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind especially captured that for me. It was about the heartbreak of love, told through Joel who had erased the memories of his relationship with Clementine, in order to avoid his deep emotional pain. In the end, he realized he needed the pain that often comes with loving someone in order to be happy, to be truly alive.

In The Invisibles we learn about Charlie. He’s a guy in his 40s that appears somewhat happy. He’s not shut down, or depressed, but we see that he’s also a guy who doesn’t get noticed by the world. On the subway, a man sits on him, not realizing he’s there. He’s passed over for a promotion at work, and his boss has to check her files to remember his name. He’s in a relationship with his wife Hanna that is strained, but we don’t know why, yet we see that she loves him, that she’s trying to connect with him. Then, on a night that Hanna prepares a special dinner and makes a final effort to reach out emotionally, he stares down at his hand and realizes he can see right through it. He starts disappearing from the world.

Charlie has been living his life under the illusion that everything is okay. He’s happy. Life is fine. It’s all good! is his catch phrase. He does this because it’s easier than facing the loss of his son, Oskar. It’s easier to pretend than to allow himself to be vulnerable to the pain of what happened. But his illusion won’t last...

Trauma hits all of us during our lives, and we grieve in different ways. But the emotions and the pain that come with grief are something we all understand, regardless of who we are, where we come from, or where we live. It’s a universally understood experience because it comes from emotions, something we all share and understand.

I’m inspired by writers like Charlie Kaufman, and directors like Michel Gondry, Jane Campion, and Alejandro Iñárritu. These filmmakers capture deep emotional truths about people, while expressing the story through strong imagery, colour and sound. At the center of this film is Charlie, and the journey of waking back up, embracing hope, and fighting to get back to the real world, and a future that’s worth fighting for. That’s what’s driving this story and drives the look, style, and the tone of The Invisibles.

I feel like this is an important story at this point in time because we live in such divided times. We see and feel that gap between us, all the time. The Invisibles is a story that hopefully helps bridge that gap by expressing a story that everyone can relate to in their own way. Films have the power to unite us

as human beings because they can express a story, a truth, that is felt by everyone who watches it. I am idealistic, and I love and embrace art that is idealistic. I’m hopeful about the future. Living in a country that is trying to make a better world is inspiring, and I hope you see The Invisibles for what it is, a fantastical story that wears its heart on its sleeve, and tells a story that will hopefully connect with anyone who has ever felt isolated, alone, or traumatized by life, and has taken - or seeks to take - a path towards hope.