We are living in a time when “connection” between messenger and receiver is a finger click away, but both seem even lonelier today than ever before. The accessibility and virtual visits into one’s life (by way of technological advances in the area of communication) create a superficial fix to the disconnect between and among people. We worship surveillance over freedom but we cower from honest reality. The individual has become isolated. Our cries echo off the walls of egos while we are left listening to our own soundtracks. Sometimes the easier it becomes to “connect,” the more difficult it becomes to see oneself in the other. I believe there is one space in our culture that is universally honest, universally necessary, universally understood, and that space is the RESTROOM! It is the intention of this film to open the most intimate of doors to our most private of spaces to reveal the common ground this particular environment offers. It is only by recognizing and respecting our common ground, by seeing what we share – what we have in common with others – that the ever-expanding gulf between people will lesson in this increasingly isolating culture of ours. The restroom is a sanctuary of honest intentions! In “Restroom” I will offer 7 vignettes that will allow viewers the opportunity to gaze through a lens into the lives of others and, ultimately, back into their own lives! This film will raise questions of individualism, community, and longing for true connection. Through this intimate exposition of human life, “Restroom” will attempt to travel to the core our strength…our vulnerability!
I have witnessed and participated in many community-building initiatives in the city of Pittsburgh and throughout my residential neighborhood, Garfield. From municipal clean-ups to neighborhood watches, dinner parties to community festivals, many people are stepping up to actualize a safer and more beautiful place to live and raise their families. “Restroom” is another contribution to these efforts towards communality. Going to the movie theatre to see the latest works from artists (local or non-local) is in itself a communal experience. The only thing that differentiates this project from similar initiatives is the content and style of the film.
