CLARITIES by Isaac Kerns | USA | 2026 

Duration: 00:02:11

A man confronts his own beliefs, contradictions, and inherited narratives through a fragmented conversation with his reflection.

DIRECTOR, WRITER : Isaac Kerns

Through spoken-word monologue and fractured mirror imagery, a man spirals through questions of ideology, mythology, bias, certainty, and self-deception. As the conversation intensifies, the boundaries between identity, reflection, and performance begin to collapse.

Director’s statement
Clarities began as an attempt to externalize internal conflict. I was interested in the way people construct belief systems, identities, and narratives that simultaneously guide and blind them. Rather than approaching those ideas through conventional narrative structure, I wanted the film to feel confrontational, cyclical, and psychologically enclosed.

The mirror became the central visual device because it allowed the character to argue with himself without fully understanding whether he was defending himself, interrogating himself, or collapsing into fragments. Nearly every visual choice in the film – lighting, repetition, framing, props, and performance, was designed to reinforce that tension between certainty and self-awareness.

Bio
Isaac Kerns is a first-time, American filmmaker and writer based in the Boulder, Colorado. His work focuses on psychological tension, symbolism, identity, and philosophical conflict through visually controlled filmmaking.

BACK TO THE PROGRAM AND VOTING

BACK TO THE SUMMER SCREENINGS 2026