It was the winter during my sophomore year of high school when I first stumbled upon Five Year Diary. I had written my first screenplay of about ten pages, and after reading it over, I felt an unearthly gap in my stomach of self doubt. I was my biggest critic, and it seemed as if every goal I’d chased after was soon to fizzle out. Browsing through the internet in search for an honest answer for what I had felt, I came across the experimental filmmaker, Anne Charlotte Robertson.

The premise of Reel 22 goes as follows: a diaristic and intimate, but confrontational approach at first-person cinema, through the lens of Robertson’s super 8 camera. I remember awing at her vulnerability, a familiar matter for me growing up. Multi-faceted layers of insecurity stunted me as a little girl, but seeing Anne’s experimental expression when describing her battles with her mental illness, binge eating disorder, and grief, wrapped me in a soft blanket of gratefulness. What did it mean to be thankful of your favorite statue, shadows reflected in empty rooms, or to eat with your hands? Why was it important to make plans with your mother, or to record your lover sleeping? What good is life if it’s always perfected? 

Robertson films the answers; that what makes up life are the little things, and in all entries of her diary of raw emotion, stereo narration and music, was the influence that led me to start documenting the flecks and fragments of life. I was engrossed in Robertson’s sustained inner dialogue or the art of a conversation with herself. I wanted to learn more about the use of filmmaking as self-therapy, or the unceasing need to record everything on a crowded street.

For me, and for many others, I craved the authenticity. Watching Anne's videos felt like watching through the eyes of someone I never knew, yet always seemed familiar. She is the kind of filmmaker that makes you want to hug your family tighter, or plan that spontaneous trip with your closest friends.