‘I AM STILL HERE’ is more than a documentary – it’s the painful story of the end. We’ve watched this short documentary twice to try and feel it as a documentary, but the story is far too poetic and sad to be taken into consideration as an informative short. Ninety years old, living in the same area, protecting your home, your surroundings, protecting your whole world – this should be the synopsis of Cynthia Matty-Huber's film.

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The cinematic spectrum is more than appealing as each and every shot hides a small treasure that can be felt with the whole soul. One scene that we fell in love with was the one where John Hoiland, the protagonist, grabs a bite in his old vintage car! If you pause this documentary at any time, the scene captured can be an award-winning photo in an important photography contest. Cynthia Matty-Huber’s short can also be seen as a piece of history, as she got on tape a man that witnessed history himself. He was alive for the Summer of Love, he was a young boy when the Vietnam War happened, and last but not least he was around when JFK was assassinated – he is part of the history we love and cherish, and he may be one of the last few survivors that can start a sentence with “I was was there... and I am still here". 

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If you take a look inside John Hoiland’s house, you will see the vintage furniture, the wood that aged alongside him, the house that stands still in the middle of nowhere like the last element of an extinct species. The general feeling of loneliness, of deep sadness and the foreseeable perishing of the memories of a lost generation is beautifully sad and poetic. ‘I AM STILL HERE' is the last song of the last Mohican.

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Written by Vlad A. G