Taylor Desjardins
At the young age of 23, Taylor Desjardins has already made a name for herself as an award-winning screenwriter and director with a passion for cinematography and music. Her film “Suspended Frequencies,” which she wrote and directed, was the Bronze Winner of a Telly Award last year and a finalist at several film festivals. A documentary, “Tunnel Vision,” was named Best Student Documentary by Bridgewater State University, her alma mater, in 2023. “I am driven by passion and a love for telling compelling stories that bring an audience together,” she has explained.
Taylor has her own compelling story. “I was born prematurely and the doctors always recognized that I had something wrong with my eyes. I was having a hard time with seeing the chalkboard. They kept seating me in the back of the classroom. That was a lot, and my mom had to deal with a lot of special education teachers. When I was six, I was diagnosed with open-angle glaucoma. Then I started to get glaucoma treatment to get my pressures down.”
The desire to study film started as a child, when Desjardins witnessed her grandfather always walking about with a camcorder in hand. “It was as if my family members were in a movie but without a script,” she says. “He is definitely my number one inspiration for becoming a filmmaker.”
Taylor graduated Bridgewater State U. in 2025 with a double major in film and video production and psychology. During her last semester she formed her own production company, MidnightReaper Productions. And this January she and her musician fiancée, Elvita Fiorini, drove cross-country from Upstate New York to a new home in Los Angeles, where Taylor plans to pursue her lifelong dream of filmmaking full-time.
“My student film was about two music students who have to collaborate to write a song that will ultimately change their lives forever. It’s about learning to grow up and adapt to new changes in your life. It’s about not being scared to take on challenges where you may fail. It’s uplifting and funny. The song I wrote for the film was based on these last few years which have been tough. Facing the real world is hard for me. My fiancée is very supportive of all our plans.
“I’ve had ups and downs with my eyes. After high school, I had to pick up a lot of different jobs to support myself in college. I didn’t always take care of my eyes and saw a decline in my vision. It’s hard for me to read. So now I’m not driving and I know, for example, I can’t drive a van on a movie set. I took some drone lessons but probably won’t be able to get a license.
“My glaucoma is never going to go away, but you should never let something like glaucoma get you down because if you do, you’ll always have regrets about what you could have done. I can also write and have talents in more than one area. There are lots of industries that go hand in hand with film production — a ton of ways to be involved and stay involved.
“Right now, I’m writing a comedy and probably will work a few side jobs, including acting. I think that someday I’ll write a glaucoma documentary – that would be really cool. I have lots of plans – but one project at a time. I’ve also been eating better and doing exercise. It’s all about balance.”
Article courtesy of The Glaucoma Foundation
