Sola

Passion project created over a 2 years span through Covid. Inspired by personal events.

Sola is a meditation on isolation, memory, and the subconscious loops we build to protect ourselves. It follows a woman who, after a lifetime of codependency, finds herself completely alone in a dystopian, apocalyptic world. With no one left to rely on, her only source of comfort is a collection of tapes—fragments of past relationships she clings to, replaying them endlessly. Each tape is a voice from her past, a tether to a time when she wasn’t alone, even if those connections were toxic.

The film explores how the mind recycles pain, keeping us trapped in the past. These memories aren’t just stories—they’re a prison, a false sense of safety that prevents her from moving forward.

But Sola is ultimately a journey inward. As she unravels the layers of her loneliness, she begins to see that her pattern of codependency—her need to hold onto others at the cost of herself—wasn’t just about romance or friendship. It was something deeper, something ingrained. In the silence of solitude, she is finally forced to confront the root of it all: her relationship with her mother.

Through inner shadow work, she pieces together the ways in which that first bond shaped every connection that followed. The tapes, once a source of comfort, now reveal a cycle that was never truly hers to begin with. And in that realization, something shifts. The world she built around her starts to break apart—not in destruction, but in transformation. The past loses its grip, the present expands, and for the first time, she sees beyond the walls of her own mind.

Visually, Sola will evolve as she does. The muted, desaturated world she exists in will begin to take on subtle warmth as she steps into self-awareness. The suffocating echoes of the past will fade, replaced by something unfamiliar but full of possibility—silence, space, and the beginning of something new.

At its core, Sola is a story about breaking generational cycles, about facing the ghosts that live within us, and about finding strength not in others, but in oneself. Because sometimes, solitude isn’t just loneliness—it’s the first step toward true freedom.

Directed, written, edited, scored: Markus Madlangbayan
Created, co-written, production designed: Victoria Elder
Cinematographer: Dave Cortez
Starring: Victoria Elder, Juan Sucre, Reut Fish, & Jordan Smooth

This Particular Intersection

A man recalling the day everything changed.

Directed, shot, edited: Victoria Elder
Written & Starred by: Juan Sucre
Location: Palm Springs, CA

I’ve Been Here Before

First installment of a trilogy of shorts exploring shifting realities, deja vu, and the dream state.

I was inspired by a red flashing light that I can see in the distance through my bedroom window. This was created and shot in 3 hours.

Created, edited: Victoria Elder
Shot: Griffin Sednek
Location: Los Angeles, CA

After All Life Goes On

Created with my best friends pulling prompts out of a bowl.
We used a quote - ‘After all life goes on…’. A genre - ‘Mystery’ and an emotion - ‘Unwanted’

Created, edited: Victoria Elder
Co-created: Juan Sucre
AD: Daria Solovyeva
Shot: Griffin Sednek
Location: Los Angeles, CA

I Remember You…

Second installment of a trilogy of shorts exploring shifting realities, deja vu, and the dream state.

This was inspired by the feeling of two souls finding each other at the right place, but the wrong time. This was created and shot in 1.5 hours.

Created, edited: Victoria Elder
Starring: Juan Sucre
Cinematographer: Griffin Sendek