The origin of Drowning began one year before I came to the United States to study, after an experience that deeply affected me. At that time, I encountered a news event that caused significant shock within American society. Following this event, I began repeatedly asking myself: what shapes who we are today, and how do our choices gradually lead us toward different outcomes? This question soon shifted from a broad perspective to a more personal one. Through conversations with friends, I began listening closely to their pasts—their life experiences, family backgrounds, personal trauma, and moments that may seem small but leave lasting marks on a person’s life. I gradually realized that these private and subtle experiences do not disappear. Instead, they settle over time and quietly influence a person’s character, decisions, and fate. It was through this process of observing and listening that Drowning was formed. The film is not a direct response to any single event, but rather a personal expression that explores how trauma can be hidden, inherited, and unconsciously shape the direction of a person’s life.

In creating Drowning, I aimed to approach emotional states that are difficult to put into words—such as slowly sinking emotions, unseen pressure, and the feeling of losing the ability to breathe within everyday reality. For me, this film is not simply a story about crime or fate, but a reflection on how people can be gradually pushed toward the edge under the continuous pressure of life. I have always questioned those who appear to have made the “wrong choice.” Before taking that step, what kinds of loss, silence, and oppression did they experience? How many wounds were buried under the combined weight of society, environment, and time? How much pain remained unseen and ignored?· Louis is a character who is constantly worn down by trauma. His collapse is neither sudden nor accidental, but unfolds slowly and quietly through repeated discrimination, pressure, and the necessity of enduring everything alone. In him, I do not see a simple judgment of right and wrong, but the process of a person gradually losing their sense of self within reality.

Through Drowning, I hope the audience can move closer to the character’s inner world rather than rush to judge his actions. What matters most to me is whether a person, when pushed to the edge of fate, still has the possibility of being understood. This film is also a form of self-reflection. To some extent, I believe that each of us has experienced moments of emotional suffocation—times when we are shaped and compressed by life and its wounds, as if we were drowning. Drowning does not seek to provide answers, but instead offers a gaze: a gaze toward individual vulnerability, and an attempt to understand the emotional complexity of human nature.