Half A Life

When conceptualizing HALF A LIFE we wanted to convey the immigrant experience through the classic American genre of the amnesia thriller. The amnesia genre characterizes the American cultural identity where we leave the old country behind while embracing a new and confusing nationality. The business of selling counterfeit identities is the perfect backdrop to delve into the nature of adopting a culture.
The setting Jackson Heights, Queens is home to vast amounts of immigrants living in abject poverty. The rising apartments rents, exploitive hiring practices and lack of opportunities all contribute to the existence of many thriving underground economies. The neighborhood’s underbelly becomes extremely visible at night with shamelessly promoted Chinese massage parlors, drug trading, prostitution, and the dangerous activity of the MS-13 and Latin Kings street gangs.
Jackson Heights is notorious for immigration documents forgery mills. We first took notice of this business after being solicited by local youths who constantly whispered “social…social” to random strangers. The neighborhood forgery mills not only service the local illegal immigrants in need of identity cards but the wider East Coast.
HALF A LIFE will be told through the eyes of Ivo Terzic, a Bosnian Muslim who immigrated to Jackson Heights shortly after the Srebrenica Massacre in 1992. Ivo’s characterization is inspired by our father who is also a refugee from a genocide escaping the mass killings of the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War. Through the protagonist Ivo, we can tell a story about leaving past lives behind and moving forward in a country we can’t truly claim ownership of.