Echo State began as a question: Who are we when no one’s watching—and who are we when everyone is? As someone who spends a lot of time online, curating images and crafting stories, I became fascinated by the gap between public persona and private reality. The short film became a way to explore that tension, using visuals and voiceover to blur the lines between inner thought and outward projection.

The protagonist navigates two worlds—one physical, grounded in Budapest’s quiet streets; the other digital, made up of screens, filters, and scrolling feeds. I used visual motifs like reflections, double exposures, and mirrored compositions to convey a fractured sense of identity. The voiceover was recorded like a journal entry—half confident, half uncertain—echoing the inner monologue many of us carry in silence.

Working on this project made me more conscious of the role filmmaking can play in examining the self. We often talk about storytelling as entertainment, but it’s also a mirror—one that reflects not just who we are, but who we’re afraid to become. Echo State may be short, but it’s the most personal project I’ve done, and one I’ll likely return to in future work, as my own sense of identity continues to evolve.