still (despite the push of the heavy wind)

2022
29 mins
digital

still (despite the push of the heavy wind) is an experimental short film co-created with Caden Stockwell. In the film, a melancholic man living in Paris struggles to find meaning as his memories, nightmares, and day-to-day existence converge into one.

Shot in Paris and Saint-Puy in the summer of 2022, the story is woven through a monologue by the unseen narrator (Merouane Daffar) and dreamlike, visceral, sometimes jarring images.

The film premiered at Amherst College and received a sparkling review in The Amherst Student. Accepted into over 15 film festivals across the globe, still (despite the push of the heavy wind) has amassed awards from festivals including New Creators Film Awards, Critics’ Choice International Film Festival, Hollywood Gold Awards, and more.

“…Some say that setting formal constraints on a project encourages artists to tell stories more inventively — that limitation breeds creativity. Mohring and Stockwell either did not hear them or decided to prove them wrong. Their film sets no bounds on cinematic expression, but rather manipulates formal aspects of film, like color, time, and frame, to tell the story of their subject’s alienation from and disillusionment with every aspect of life.”

– Jacob Young ’25, for The Amherst Student

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