The Ugly Duckling

The Ugly Duckling explores the human condition through the difficult process of stepping outside of one’s comfort zone. The mind often struggles with change, erecting natural barriers and experiencing discomfort in never experienced situations. Unconsciously, we make sure to remain anchored to the starting point, in a known cone shadow that prevents us from betting on ourselves. These difficulties generate great fear, lay the foundations for a bad development of one’s self-perception and therefore prevent self-esteem. At that point we believe only in the negative perception that the community sends us, convinced we have no value in an absolute sense. The identity that is attributed to us gets into the part to the point that it does not matter how much you try to escape far: it follows us like a shadow. Until the day when a doubt arises: are the others really hindering our path or are we the ones who have chosen to live at the boundaries of our potential? Who really drew the line?

The Season offers an intimate narrative, illustrating an emotional journey through childhood and youth memories woven amidst the summer seasons of a small seaside village. This place, enriched by the ancestral magic it has carefully guarded over the years, is able to flatten rhythms and stretch the months, creating a temporal cycle that appears to resist the changes of the external world. Slowness becomes a central element, permeating the atmosphere of the images and prompting viewers to reflect on the relationship between time and memory, as well as on the nuances of a relationship that can be both comforting or claustrophobic, depending on the circumstances.