Alyssa Zalenski
Alyssa Zalenski is from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and is a current senior at Marymount Manhattan College in New York City, studying with a double major in Cinema, TV, and Emerging Media and Media Production. She is currently an emerging filmmaker and hopes to produce music videos following graduation. Most of Alyssa’s projects revolve around mental health disorders in order to spread awareness on those which often get looked over or are misdiagnosed, such as Paranoid Schizophrenia. Alyssa wrote a script on a woman who had blamed the death of her children on her husband after a boating trip due to her Paranoid Schizophrenia. She also enjoys delving into horror stories through creative writing, including a short story she wrote when her obsession with a crush grew so strong, it ended in murder. Most of Alyssa’s projects revolve around mental health disorders in order to spread awareness on those which often get looked over or are misdiagnosed, such as Paranoid Schizophrenia. Alyssa wrote a script on a woman who had blamed the death of her children on her husband after a boating trip due to her Paranoid Schizophrenia. She also enjoys delving into horror stories through creative writing, including a short story she wrote when the obsession with a crush grew so strong, it ended in murder.
Artist Statement
When I was a Junior in High School, Wednesdays were my least favorite day of the week. I can still remember the feeling of going to bed the night before knowing exactly what the next day would bring. My Dad would wake up, claim he was going to work, and then come home some hours later swearing my Mom was cheating on him. At first, I thought it was just some lack of confidence, but when he started claiming he was speaking to God and he told him directly that my Mom was cheating on my Dad, I knew that it was way more than that. I started to backtrack, retracing all of his steps, noticing when he would leave the house in the morning he would be completely fine, but by the time I would get home from cheer practice his eyes would be bloodshot, his arms covered in scratches, he would be pacing around the room, biting his fingernails, screaming at the top of his lungs and then asking me how school was as if nothing had happened. I knew it was drugs, my whole family did, after years of being in and out of Psych Wards and County Prisons, he was finally diagnosed with Bipolar Schizophrenia and also Paranoid Schizophrenia. When he would take his meds, life was back to normal, but his masculinity got the best of him and he convinced himself he did not need them. Half of my family lost all hope for him, but all I wanted was to help him, which is where the idea for Nothing came from. Although Ace seems like a terrifying and hopeless character, it is obvious that this is not whom he used to be. This is an entirely different person whose brain was consumed by the disease of drug addiction. Before my Junior year of High School, I would never sympathize with characters such as Ace, but now he is one of my favorite characters I have ever created in my work.