Director Statement

I chose to direct “The Purpose” to explore the ability to understand and share the feelings of empathy, to convey the idea that some people lack it, pretending they have it. Empathy is our unique human feature that allows us to obtain the superpower of understanding other people’s thoughts. Nature made this so that we, as mankind, survive in evolution. But sometimes, to go beyond our limits, we need to lack empathy. For tasks like finding new places to live or discovering fire, we had to cut our social limitations, overcome the fear of failure or shame, and go beyond the limits. This is how nature included people with psychopathic symptoms in the evolution of mankind.

I have a big amount of empathy. As it turns out, empathy often forms in families where parents do not communicate much with their children. So, children understand what their parents are thinking, why they are angry or upset. Living with this ability, I had an advantage in understanding people’s feelings. But as a result, I was used by people who saw this trait and, as soon as they got what they needed, they turned their backs on me. Particularly, I had a girlfriend who said she did not feel any empathy for people. This inspired me to research this topic. I found out that many people lack empathy or have none at all. The most frightening thing is that people with high intelligence and no empathy can be very charismatic and develop “cold empathy”—the ability to know what people want without feeling it.

The more I researched this topic, the more I was intrigued. I noticed that people without empathy are often more successful. These people cannot feel emotions from the actions of others or themselves. Scientists call it a blocked path to the amygdala. For example, Walt Disney, who faced 300 rejections for Mickey Mouse. He likely didn’t feel bad emotions from the rejections, unlike people with normal empathy levels.

I started to think about how we measure people by appearance, sexual orientation, or words, but not by empathy level. If we could measure empathy, we could understand why someone did what they did. In fact, by doing the PCL-R test and an MRI, we can detect a person’s empathy level. We do this with criminals, but why not with politicians?

While watching this film, I want the viewer to feel sympathy for the main character through her charismatic actions in situations where most people cannot protect their boundaries. As a result, viewers will sympathize with a person who has zero empathy.

The experience of working on the short film will help me with future projects. I spent four days shooting and interacting with all departments. The idea of making a short film was to hire every crew position to learn the relationships between them and the director. I especially enjoyed working with the cast. It was amazing to see Nataly grow as a character on screen.