Cameron Kostopoulos is a current student at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, set to graduate in 2021. Originally from Dallas, Texas, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue his interest in experimental filmmaking and visual storytelling. Throughout his education, he has worked primarily as a director and cinematographer, and has worked across a range of mediums including short films, interactive films, VR/AR technologies, and projection mapping installations. He hopes to write and direct an anthological web series of visually-told stories for a streaming site such as Netflix.
‘A Mother’s Soliloquy’ was born out of personal experiences with addiction at a young age. Growing up in a family disrupted by alcohol took a toll on my own upbringing, and seemingly kept my family trapped in an incessant cycle of relapse and recovery.
Inspired by my own experience, ‘A Mother’s Soliloquy’ aims to capture the violent, cyclical nature of alcoholism, and its disruptive effect on the family. Structured loosely around the 12 Steps of AA, the story sympathizes with those suffering from addiction, while attempting to explore the psychological toll that addiction may take. ‘Soliloquy’ presents a raw, visceral look at one woman’s decision to drink, portraying relapse with unapologetic honesty as we see the path to recovery cut short.
Told without dialogue, much of the film is communicated visually and abstractly, with the human body becoming its own unspoken form of dialogue. Through this abstraction, the film attempts to create a more layered, intimate atmosphere, allowing audiences to follow the story while simultaneously projecting their own experiences. The film combines a deep, electronic score with an experimental visual journey in order to tell a poem of grief, loss, and addiction, and a mother’s struggle to overcome her temptation.
I created this project in hopes of shedding light on the nature of alcoholism in a postmodern world. Despite touching the lives of millions each year, the effects of alcohol abuse are rarely discussed on-screen. Through ‘Soliloquy’, I hope to generate conversation about the struggles of recovery, and to relate my own story to the experiences of others. I hope to transport audiences into a new world, to take each viewer into an inward, psychological journey. I hope to speak directly to those who have been affected by alcoholism; those who face the daily struggle of the bottle, those mentally and emotionally hurt by its reach, and those forced to watch as friends and family suffer from its grasp.
