My name is Juliet Belisario, and I’m the writer and director of Willow World, a poetic documentary shot on 16mm. The film explores memory, rebirth, and the search for beauty in the aftermath of childhood trauma.

The title comes from the willow tree: a symbol of resilience and renewal. Willows bend but don’t break, and they grow near water. Willows are symbols of memory, reflection, and healing. In Willow World, I weave together fragments of my child welfare documents with sensorial vignettes shot on film, blending archive and imagination to piece together a suppressed personal history.

At its heart, the film asks: How do you heal when your earliest memories are fractured by trauma?

Through texture, silence, and layered sound, the film creates a trance-like rhythm where past and present overlap, with child welfare documents cutting into images of nature, to show how trauma surfaces unexpectedly. This is not just a film about pain, but about transformation, reclamation, and making something beautiful out of what was broken.

Why I Need Your Support:

I’ve chosen to shoot on 16mm colour film with a Bolex, because the physicality of film matches the fragility and intensity of memory itself. But film is expensive. Unlike digital, every minute of footage costs money, from raw stock to processing to scanning.

Here’s where your contribution goes:

• 16mm film stock and processing

• Scanning (digitizing the footage)

• Sound design and mixing

• Essential production costs (equipment, transportation, crew support)

I’m raising $2,000 to make this possible. Every dollar directly ensures that this deeply personal film can exist in the form it needs to.

Why This Matters:

Willow World is an act of reclamation. It gives voice to the inner voiceless child, and challenges misconceptions about people who come from broken homes. We are not defined by the worst things that happened to us. We are capable of making art that is complex, beautiful, and alive.

I hope this film inspires others with their own stories to share them too. Because acknowledging our pain isn’t just personal, but a step toward liberation.

Thank you for helping me make Willow World. With your support, I can turn a history of silence into something shimmering, resilient, and alive.

Director: Juliet Belisario

Producer/Editor: Jazleen Alagh

Cinematographer: Jodi Gapan

Sound: Fozail Azizian

All donors will be thanked in the end credits.