‘I want me back’ – after a head injury, Nick struggles with his altered reality

In 2020, the New Zealand advertising creative and writer Nick Worthington was riding his bike when he was hit by a car that had run a red light. Waking up in the aftermath, he found that he had suffered injuries all over his body, many of which would heal somewhat quickly, and injuries to his brain, which would linger with a distressing persistence. With meticulous audiovisual design by the New Zealand filmmaker Jonny Kofoed and creatives at his production company Assembly, Diary of a Head Injury depicts Worthington’s account of attempting to adjust to ‘a new normal’. In an emotive, occasionally rhyming narration that rises and falls with his frustrations, Worthington details the gap between who he used to be and how he now experiences his stream of consciousness: one which shifts between his former self and a new, often tired and confused stranger, depending on the time of day. The resulting short makes for a haunting and vivid first-person account of what it feels like to lose part of oneself, while clinging to the hope that it might yet be recovered.