WHY breaking the SURFACE?

Sadie Jones is a photojournalist based in Syracuse, New York, and Washington, D.C. She is drawn to intimate human narratives, capturing unguarded moments that reveal the deeper stories people carry—the struggles, connections, and quiet triumphs that often go unnoticed.

Her work spans various publications and includes a two-year position as a photo intern for Syracuse University's football team, where she learned to anticipate decisive moments and work under pressure. But it's the quieter, more intimate stories that truly drive her work—the ones that require patience, trust, and time to unfold.

At the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Sadie has developed her approach to long-form storytelling through coursework in documentary photography and video storytelling, visual editing and sequencing, and journalism ethics. She understands that access to vulnerable moments comes from building genuine relationships. Her work aims to show people in their fullness, not just their struggles, but their strength, complexity, and the ways communities create solutions where systems fall short.

I made this film because I was drowning. Not literally, but in the way that the end of something big makes you feel like the ground is gone and you're just trying to figure out which way is up. I was feeling it. Everyone around me was feeling it. And nobody was really saying it out loud.

I didn't want to make a film about college. I wanted to make a film about that specific feeling that lives in the space between where you've been and where you're going. The cold water before the warmth arrives. The moment before you surface.

What I found when I started asking questions was that the feeling had a shape. It started in the body. It moved into other people. And then it arrived at the edge of something new and stood there, not quite ready to get out.

Spending time with the people I care about, really listening to them in the moments we had left, gave me something back. It reminded me why I love making things. Why visuals matter. Why a single image can hold what words keep reaching for and missing.

This film is for everyone who has ever been in the deep end by themselves. And for everyone who eventually felt the water get warmer.

ABOUT THE FILMMAKER