Editor’s note: “Homebody” is a column that explores the role of the body as our home and a bridge between current and past versions of ourselves. In this edition, columnist Julia Neville delves into how documenting moments translates to self-identity. Who have we become, and how did we get to now?
Artistry and creative expression are the prism through which we construct our identities. As creators, our content is a byproduct of our environment, relationships, and aspirations. Regardless of the medium — music, cinema, journalism, or another form altogether — our creative output captures us as we are during the moment of ideation.
Perhaps we become someone else during the execution, or in the aftermath. Maybe not.
Outside the elitist confines of Hollywood, independent and aspiring filmmakers are telling their own stories, crafting narratives that simultaneously resonate with an audience and serve as raw representations of self.
For third-year student Bella Quilici, who is the head of marketing of LUX Film Production Club, an RSO for collaborative, student-led film productions, filmmaking is a creative and cathartic vessel for reflection that helps her connect with past versions of herself.
“I’m a very sentimental person, and I think that is very reflective in all the different kinds of films I've made throughout my life,” Quilici said. “I love capturing, I love remembering, I love reflecting.”
Quilici started experimenting with filmmaking in elementary school. One summer, her mom broke an ankle, and their family couldn’t do as many interactive activities together. Bored and determined to have fun on her own, Quilici taught herself how to navigate iMovie. Her first films were an intimate cast of her brother and stuffed animals.
It wasn’t until Quilici took a video arts class in high school that she started taking filmmaking more seriously. During her senior year, when Quilici was 18 years old, she filmed, edited, and published the autobiographical film “Growing Up” to capture the nuances of becoming an adult and ending her childhood chapter.
Near the end of the three-minute film, narrated over footage of her younger self, she grounds herself in how she’s stayed the same.
“No matter how old I get, I’ll always be just as sensitive. I’ll always wear my heart on my sleeve, and I’ll always stand up for what I believe in, even if it means I make a fool out of myself,” Quilici said in her film. “This will always be the way that I am, and there’s no changing that.”
Two years later, through LUX, Quilici directed the film “A Letter to 20,” which felt like a natural response to “Growing Up.” While this film cast different actors and was not quite as centered around her narrative, Quilici explained that each film suspended a specific version of herself in time.
“The two films create an interesting conversation with each other,” Quilici said. “[‘Growing Up’] is ‘I’m ready to leave,’ and ‘A Letter to 20’ feels more settled and definitely reflects the stronger foundation that I built.”
According to Quilici, a parallel between the two films is the sadness that comes with change, whether through bouts of uncertainty in the former or seasonal depression in the latter.
A broader throughline in Quilici’s own life is her steadfast passion and commitment to making films.
“I just love telling stories,” Quilici said. “At its core, that’s what filmmaking is: storytelling.” Whether as a director, producer, or cinematographer, “As long as I’m still telling stories that I feel are important, I’ll be happy.”
Quilici’s love of visual storytelling, unfolding in scripted form and by leaving the camera on for candid moments in her own life, made me reminisce about my relationship with film.
Between 2020 and 2023, I made monthly montages with an app called 1SE, short for 1 Second Everyday. I’d compile one-second videos from each month, add my favorite song at the time as a backdrop, and watch as the characters and locations specific to my lived experiences shifted over time — during and after COVID-19 and as I left my small town to start college.
I still make these montages here and there, but I’m less consistent with it. For those three years, it was an integral part of my routine. I’d film aesthetic moments and brainstorm creative ways to document my life, sometimes in less organic ways than others, choreographing movements or curating my content. Now, I pull mostly from live pictures and videos I naturally thought to capture.
This intimate form of documentation during my late teenage years ties me to who I used to be, even as I pay attention to the style I used to film in. I have access to a younger version of myself, including some of her sweetest moments and the people and passions she cared most about at the time.
Yet it’s jarring to see someone preserved through film who doesn’t exist in the same form anymore. My skin isn’t as perfect as it was at 17, and I have less of a baby face. In different phases of the videos, my hair length and color change, and one day, about two years into filming, I enter the scene with a nose piercing.
Some main characters fade to the background before being phased out completely, making room for new ones. Occasionally, when they visit from across the country, a few of my childhood friends pop up in the montages I make now.
Watching my moments unfold is a nostalgic nod to who I was when I hit record. I remember and reflect on the context behind the differences in my narrative and take comfort in the continuity.
Similarly, Quilici is driven to tell stories through her films as a way for her to process, heal, and grow.
“It's really important that we connect with past versions of ourselves, whether those versions are ones we're proud of or ones that we're not proud of,” Quilici said. “I think the ones we're especially not proud of are most important to go back to and understand why we're not as proud of those versions."
Reach columnist Julia Neville at opinion@dailyuw.com. X: @juliaaclare7. Bluesky: @juliaaclare.bsky.social.
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