Soul Donor

Focussing on the difficulties of striving for success while seeking it in a distant land far from home and unfamiliar to you, Daniel Mohseni’s work aims to depict the harsh reality of balancing the self and its external qualities that give life meaning. As an international student from Iran and studying in the United States, he has been exposed to a plethora of hardships and obstacles that stand in the way of what he strives to do and who he strives to become. When looking at the future and what lies ahead for an aspiring filmmaker such as himself, it is often challenging to look over the multiple indications of instability that comes with being a foreigner in America. The lottery-based nature of acquiring citizenship, and the differing willingness of company hires for that very reason, all leads him to believe that it is not a wise decision to plan a future here. Furthermore, the medium of film and cinema is one of competition. A funnel separating the good from the great, and given the circumstances, that funnel is even smaller. With this new added pressure, worries and doubts tend to simmer about what Daniel is doing now to better prepare himself for what is about to come, and with that, those worries and fears are molded into stories worth telling.

Throughout the years, Daniel has been taught that to be a filmmaker, you must tell the stories that are burning a hole in your soul which you cannot help but externalize for the world to see. He has been taught that the stories you tell are the ones you love. But his approach to storytelling is not one of loving the story and letting others become immersed in it. Rather, it is a constant cathartic moment for his struggles as a foreigner to be let out. To no longer burden his soul and to allow the fears, worries and doubts that come with seeking a second home, to diminish. The stories Daniel aims to tell, and the films he aims to make, are not acts of joy and happiness, but therapeutic and relieving as he continues his journey in this unfamiliar land. His latest project, Soul Donor, aims to tell the story of a son endlessly caring for his coma-ridden mother. This story has been brought to fruition by the most prominent fear that lives within almost everyone striving towards success: what if this was all for nothing? This question that has haunted him for a majority of his time in university is the very question he intends on putting to rest. Not by finding the answer, but by letting it out the only way he knows how, through cinema.