Still Here

“Still Here is a quiet refusal to let these losses disappear into silence, or to reduce them to statistics.”

Fentanyl poisoning is now the leading cause of death for people ages 18–45 in the United States, yet most media portrayals focus on trauma, sensationalism, or punishment. Still Here was created to shift that narrative, to spotlight empathy, remembrance, and the quiet, disorienting ripple effects that follow a single loss.

This film doesn’t center the moment of poisoning, it centers the aftermath. It asks: what happens when someone’s world unravels in the silence that follows? How does grief distort time, memory, and even reality? And what does it mean to stay, as a friend, as a witness, when someone you love retreats into that distortion?

As a filmmaker, I’m drawn to stories that live in emotional stillness. Stories that hold beauty and ache in the same frame. Still Here is a quiet refusal to let these losses disappear into silence, or to reduce them to statistics. It’s a space for feeling, for remembering, and for seeing the invisible weight that grief can carry.

— Chelsey Kaye