The Story of UN/FILTERED
Photo by Julia Gorton
THE FILM’S MISSION: UN/FILTERED is a fifteen-minute thriller that explores reality and identity through the unreliable lens of social media. Inspired by influencer culture, The Twilight Zone, and, Black Mirror this short is meant to make us question our perception of self, reevaluate the idea of perfection, and remind us that a flawless photo rarely offers the full picture.
Photo by Jurgen Koch
ABOUT THE FILM: A beloved influencer is on top of the world until a series of cryptic messages appear to rattle her confidence and change her completely.
FROM OUR DIRECTOR / A moment of inspiration
Back before Twitter became X and Facebook became Meta, long before Musk and Zuckerberg were threatening to wrestle (or whatever), I was fresh out of college and doing one of two things:
Trying to figure out who I was in the world… or, more likely…
Avoiding that daunting task by doom-scrolling Facebook (though we didn't call it that quite yet).
It was during one of those scroll sessions that I recall encountering an ad for something called FaceTune. It was an app that filtered out all your flaws so you could have the perfect profile picture. I'd never been so shocked and appalled.
Deeply offended, I immediately took to the comments to inform the jack wagons over at FaceTune that my face was perfectly fine as is, thank you very much, and how dare they recklessly advertise such a horrifying service.
Well, that was over a decade ago.
These days, I have no idea what the people of FaceTune are doing, probably happily working at one of the many software companies that took their idea and ran with it, but I do know that I'm no longer shocked and appalled when it's suggested that I filter my face's flaws or blur my body's imperfections. In fact, it is completely commonplace.
But just because this phenomenon of filters and Photoshop no longer surprises me, doesn’t mean I’m not critical of it. In fact, I find myself wondering with increasing urgency:
What has this pursuit of perfection cost us?
And most of all, is it worth the price we pay?