Meet Michelle Dali

We were lucky to catch up with Michelle Dali recently and have shared our conversation below.

Michelle, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?
When it comes to persevering doing what I do, I remember to stand and show support to myself even when times become really tough. Lately and throughout the years, life has had many downs. I have more than one mental illness I suffer through on a daily basis and I’m pretty much amazed that I’m still alive today. I look back and remember the series of disappointing things I’ve experienced and remind myself, “that’s who you’re fighting for, the little girl who never got her chance to shine in the past”. My resilience I guess comes from the battles I face everyday.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
So currently I’ve been active as a short filmmaker in Chicago for a while. My passion for cinema came by in my late teens but it wasn’t until around 2018-2019 that I finally was able to work behind the camera for the first time in terms of filming. My first ever film was produced on an iPhone X, the phone I still have today haha! Now I’ve been able to produce my films via a nice little cinematic camera I own by Canon.

But still, I’m not really satisfied with my current work. I’ve been fortunate to collaborate with actors and such, but there’s always room to grow and that’s what I look to do as a filmmaker. I deeply adore cinema and not just it locally or nationwide. I’m fascinated by cinema worldwide especially in terms of how different countries are able to communicate their stories and perspectives to viewers. I’m currently learning about cinema throughout the ages and how it’s transformed with time. It’s always interesting to observe how certain things develop with time and cinema is one of those things you can certainly observe with awe. Part of my journey as a filmmaker is to create work that may be able to stand out within time, but I have such a long way to go before I can reach that level. I appreciate the masters of cinema out there that have been able to do that and I’m continuously learning from them.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
When it comes filmmaking and even music (since I also make/compose music). I look out for certain things for sure that I can take away in my development as an artist. I can narrow it to three being:

1. Innovation – I like it when something sounds or looks very different than what is being put out there. Whether it’s by writing, direction, cinematography, or score, I’m constantly eyeing anything that can give itself away in a unique way. But I have seen contemporary work that may present itself as innovative and it “may be”, but it may miss the mark with viewers. I feel like innovation must come with excellent execution. Something that inspires audiences to pursue doing something new rather than instilling confusion.

2. Writing – Again whether it’s for song or film, anything beautifully written is what tends to also get to me. A story can be poorly written but excellently filmed. A song can be a mainstream hit but have very shallow or forgettable lyrics. A lot of things these days lack poetry or substance due to marketing and the need to reach plenty in order to get a certain amount of money covered. Art & deep thinking is being thrown away for fame and glamour. You see this through several Hollywood films that are so poor in terms of originality and writing. So now I’ve become very picky even with music. Great writing is where I can learn as an artist and a human being.

3. Music – Music was how I eventually fell in love with movies. My younger sister (who got me into film scores) and I would just evaluate films based on their score and then eventually we started picking apart direction, performance, writing and so on. We grew up loving scores from Thomas Newman (Finding Nemo, Road To Perdition), James Newton Howard (The Dark Knight, The Village, Lady in the Water) and more. As a musician myself, it’s very important how music can make a film. If done well, a song can really make a scene or film timeless. Music has taught me a lot about depth. A beautiful score or musical piece can take you places. From this knowledge, I’ve been able to tailor my short films.

In conclusion, all these things are what I continue to enhance as an artist or filmmaker because these have been some of what’s helped many films make it in history. Whether it was the directors who used clever innovation to change the game, the incredible writing that played out on screen, or the music that really brought out the best elements of a film, these are some of things I’ve been able to take from and develop myself in. I think those who are starting out young should pay attention to these attributes and continuously learn from them. I’d also advise to look out as to how all these elements transform as time passes and really craft your material along with those changes cleverly.

Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?
Continuing to find motivation about my life. It’s a grim and sort of nihilistic thing to say, but it’s honest. I’ve been through a number of bad things in life. Life has been governed by poor mental healthy and instability along with poor decisions made along the way. I think I’ve seen more doors close than open and so it’s dimmed a light in me that I once had.

I don’t live a glamorous or wealthy life. I live with my mother as of now and really work a normal part time job. The greatest highlight throughout all of this is my filmmaking platform. I also have good friends and family, but I must find motivation to continue looking at the “sun” while everything looks like night time around me.

I think it’s important to convey this. There are so many people that are not happy in this world. I thought happiness would be easy but as you grow older you find that you’ll get to know more pain than joy. Some are blessed to not have experienced as much pain as I have. But then you have those who are going through worse than me like those in the current wars (Ukraine, Gaza, etc). How I keep going is just by loving myself through it all. I feel sorry for myself. That sounds funny, but I mean in the way of feeling for parts of me that’s have had to withstand the many blows life has given me. So now I just take care of myself and provide the love I need when I feel low. I like to lay down in my bed and listen to calming ASMR and some prayer videos haha!

Contact Info:

Image Credits
All images are produced by me featuring actors: Paul Nada, Margaret Thompson, Molly Smith, Karen Cone, & Alannah Swenka.

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