PLUCK

A surrealist psychological adventure, 'Pluck' follows Anais, who’s traveling alone through Europe on a journey of self-discovery. Staying in the Italian countryside, in a castle, now a hotel, she's drawn to Thiago, a young escort of an older woman. As she spends the day wandering, she explores the village and herself.

Questioning cinematic storytelling, the film shows the inner and exterior worlds of Anais to reveal the multiple levels of reality, while using Italy’s cultural landscape to remark on Westerns fetishization of traveling for self-discovery and to give a voice to female sexuality outside of morality, examining the female erotic gaze and cinemas innate voyeurism.

Director’s Statement: Believing in the cathartic power of cinema as an initiator of change, I would love to share this film with the wider public. I’m a performance artist, filmmaker and photographer who creates international productions that focus on a female perspective and sociopolitical topics. As a female filmmaker writing stories about women, I want to change the way we see female sexuality, giving it a voice in a society who views women primarily through a male gaze, helping to shape the female erotic gaze. I use my experiences, plus extensive research, to create stories that empower others. Observing low self-esteem among women, I made ‘Pluck’ to show the confusion of female sexuality, hoping to inspire women to no longer feel alone and to discover strength within, and others the freedom to be themselves.

In the current political climate where legislation in America increasingly obstructs women’s reproductive health, and essentially their sexual freedom, I feel it’s paramount to establish a cinema for women by women that enables authority over their unique voice and their sexuality. Growing up in America, I never really felt like there was a space to safely be a female and sexual. My work has always strived to combat this in its many forms. Using a multilayered process, I seek to blur fiction/nonfiction,cinematic/ethnographic, stylized/mundane, conscious/subconscious, art/life to reveal the borders of society and reality, and investigate the interrelationship of spirituality, sexuality, and transcendence. Through this way of working, I want to create stories that show the duplicity of the self and reality. I hope this will enter viewers on a journey of self-discovery alongside my characters, inspiring