Interview with Starry Venus

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Interview with Starry Venus

About multi-dimensional experience, awakening and remembering in a 90-seconds short film "Starborn"

AFF journalist

You’ve described Starborn as a “multi-dimensional experience” packed into just 90 seconds. What was the greatest creative challenge in distilling such a deep message into such a short format?

The short format was the greatest challenge - packing it all into a 90 second time limit and still having all the beats come in the way that I wanted them to. It was an interesting parameter to work with, a kind of compression almost.

Starry Venus

Director, writer

Starborn

A forgotten goddess wanders the desert only to realize we are never truly alone. We are the angels we seek.

"With "Starborn," I set out to create a multi-dimensional experience within 90 seconds—an emotional, visual, and spiritual journey that unfolds in layers.

The desert serves as both a void and a threshold, a guide and a reflection. This is a film about awakening—remembering who we are, why we are here, and how we lift each other, often without realizing it.

In "Starborn," time folds, reality bends, and what seems like a solitary journey transforms into a revelation. This film is not only about a lost star goddess on earth; it is about the universal search for meaning, the unseen ways we guide and are guided, and the deep interconnectedness of humanity."

AFF journalist

The desert is almost a character in the film—both symbolic and literal. How did you choose the location, and what does the desert represent to you personally and spiritually?

I’ve lived in a lot of deserts, different kinds, many different places. The desert is a character in the film. In fact, how I connect to my version of filmmaking is that the landscape is always considered a character. I love that that is coming across. I live in Sedona now, and the desert has always spoken to me in a deep way. You may think it’s desolate or intense or barren but there’s so much life coming from places you wouldn’t expect. I feel that it’s a very alive place to get to know everything about life. I wasn’t sure exactly where in Sedona I was going to shoot this film, and I went with how it felt on the land that day and how the light looked. It was really important to me that the light of the desert would come through, so I chose the location based on the natural light. It was a very organic process.

Starry Venus

Director, writer

AFF journalist

The themes of awakening and remembering feel deeply spiritual. Was Starborn inspired by a specific experience or moment in your own life?

There’s been so many of those moments. I feel like it’s a constant process of awakening and remembering, and then figuring out what I am going to do in this version of my life at this time. Sometimes that awakening comes through how others recognize us or remember us or speak to us. It is an ongoing, experiential process; although I did have an moment that some might call a “near death experience” where I came back into my body and suddenly I asked - who am I, what am I doing. Everything had to reform around that.

It also becomes a choice of not only remembering but deciding along the way who we are and who we want to be. Starborn is an exploration of that. Looking at that choice and making a commentary on that. Am I someone who is forlorn in the desert identifying with the trauma, or am I a beautiful angelic being who had a profound role in helping others? Sometimes remembering ourselves is about just being and accepting. I’m exploring all of that from a lens of not exactly having the answer, but seeing it around me as part of how I get to remember.

Starry Venus

Director, writer

AFF journalist

There’s a strong visual and auditory rhythm to Starborn. How did you approach the music, sound design, and editing to support the emotional arc of the film?

The sound design, visual editing and the music are very connected because those elements are also characters in the film. The way editing can be rhythmic, the way it connects to the music and the visuals. I don’t experience it being separate. I knew that the song Stars was going to be in Starborn (Stars is the first song on my recent music release). I could hear it when I was filming. For me, editing is like an instrument, it’s not just a technical thing. It’s instrumentation in the way you might play a piano. All of it feels like an instrument. It’s like playing music even though I’m making a film. My goal is for it to be cohesive, I’m intending for that rhythm to be part of what’s happening.

Starry Venus

Director, writer

AFF journalist

The final message—that we are the angels we seek—feels especially resonant. What does that line mean to you, and how do you hope audiences interpret it?

For me, it means that life is this angelic experience. It’s not about something unattainable, outside of us, doing it for us or giving it to us. We are the walking expression and embodiment of all that is angelic. I feel life is showing us that in many different ways. Once we realize we have that power to be angelic for ourselves and each other, then we’re not looking outside ourselves. I hope audiences interpret that in a way that they think, Yes, I am that. I am that angel. That angel is me. I don’t need to go anywhere or do anything except walk this earth in whatever way I’m choosing to walk it. I hope people allow that angelic aspect to exist, and realize we don’t have to do anything, there’s no right or wrong. We have the power. You may never know what it is that you’ve done that saved someone in their path or changed their life in a positive way. I hope there’s a remembrance there. That’s the beauty of life. We get to be this for each other and ourselves.

Starry Venus

Director, writer

AFF journalist

You wore many hats on this film—director, cinematographer, editor, and more. How does that level of control help shape your artistic voice, and is that how you prefer to work?

For Starborn I did prefer doing all these pieces, I liked being in all these places at the same time, but I don’t always need to do it in that way. For example, in the feature I’m developing, I’m working on putting together the right crew, trusting in the people who understand the vision. That’s important to me. I’m not willing to compromise on alignments with the vision. Because Starborn is a short piece it was straightforward to do all of that and establish how I’m presenting what Starry Venus work is to the world. There is a vision.

Starry Venus

Director, writer

AFF journalist

How has your personal spiritual or philosophical worldview influenced your filmmaking
overall—not just in Starborn, but more broadly?

The spiritual process or philosophical or whatever you want to call it is nonlinear for me, and no matter what I think it is or has been, or what the world says it is or isn’t, it's a journey and it’s always a realization, an epiphany. It’s something that crystallizes from living and experiencing life as a spiritual journey - there is not separation. There are no definitive lines on becoming who we are. In my journey, as soon as I understand one aspect of my consciousness I want to understand more.

That becomes the ground where I’m creating the music and film from. It’s from the place of watching all the walls fall, all the boundaries come down, the limitations get eradicated. Then seeing what’s there. That levels the playing field so I can see where my alignments are when nothing else is there. Understanding why we are here, what we’re doing and how we make this the best experience possible. I want to do that creatively as well. I want to create things that activate our consciousness. Working beyond genre or limitations to get to the places that are able to connect us more to what I feel our purpose on earth is.

Starry Venus

Director, writer

AFF journalist

Can you tell us a bit about your creative process? Do your projects begin with visuals,
emotions, or a story idea?

It all happens at once. I’m connected to the dream realm as much the waking realm. All of it comes at once. I’ll have the song, the script, the visualization of the character, and it’s all right there together, because to me it’s all one thing. The challenge becomes how to give it form, give it life, expression, while leaving an openness there that becomes the magic, it’s a balancing act.

Starry Venus

Director, writer

Starry's songs are on Spotify

Listen on Spotify

AFF journalist

What kind of stories or themes are you most drawn to as a filmmaker and storyteller? Are there recurring motifs in your work?

I’m telling stories that explore a nonlinear, multidimensional aspect of who we are, what love is, and how that can be expressed and embodied in its fullest potential in a way that is relatable, in the vein of fantasy and experimental. I love expressing this through the story of the feminine, but it does’t mean it excludes the masculine. The female is a lens I’m interested in working through because I feel that it’s an energy that has been highly manipulated and suppressed. She’s like our catalyst. I’m looking for ways that can take what is almost unattainable and might be marginalized and make it something that can speak to the every day person.

Starry Venus

Director, writer

AFF journalist

What’s next for you? Are you working on any upcoming films or projects that continue this exploration of inner and outer worlds?

Yes, I have music videos for my album SOUL that I’m working on now, which are short films as much as they are videos. All in the concept of everything we’re talking about here. I’m excited to put those pieces out as visual and audio pieces. I also have a feature film that I’m developing, focusing on on doing in 90 minutes what we’ve just been able to achieve in 90 seconds. Not the same story as Starborn, but inspired by it in some ways.

Starry Venus

Director, writer