“I believe in a lot of things, I believe in love and I believe in peace too. Believing is saying that you can find a way, some way to breakthrough.” These words shot by filmmaker Stella Scott in her new film capture the essence of youthful optimism. As we draw closer to the end of a politically turbulent year, the commentary of the short gives us a glimpse into the minds of the next generation who will have to eventually handle the fallout of a post-Trump, post-Brexit world.

Reverie is a film and photography series capturing the dreams and aspirations of young people. The British filmmaker has taken photos of all the young people involved, who then uploaded the images to their personal Instagram accounts. The posts were accompanied by the hashtag ‘#thisisreverie’, along with each individual’s thoughts and dreams. Having run groups with her partner Joanna Vieira with youth workers from Platform Islington, The Participation People, Kids Company (since closed) and Kings Corner Project (since closed), Scott and Viera collected over 50 voices. 

The young people involved unanimously decided the project's focus. “The conversations were vast but they all hated associations with the word ‘struggle’ – they wanted to focus on the possibility of sculpting a future undefined by the past,” says Scott. She discovered that for all those interviewed, dreams were a way to “form a sense of self and a way to stay afloat through difficult times.”

Scott adds: “There’s a lot of conflict between what people want and what people see around them, between the life they are sold and the one they are living. People are taught to be free thinkers, to dream big but they are still trapped in archaic stereotypes and systems. We have long been intoxicated by the idea of self-made success, but as the promise of possibility expands, the reality of inequality continues.”

Watch the short film above.