La blatta e la formica

About this movie

A father and his daughter live in a large house concealed in the woods. The little girl is slowly losing her memory, forgetting some small details of her daily life, faces, moments, and objects that were once familiar to her. To help her recover her memories, her father searches for items connected to her past, including her favorite flowers, every day, hoping through sight or scent, they might awaken something inside her. During one of their explorations in the woods, an unexpected encounter with a cockroach breaks through their routine: the insect lights up and blends with the father's memories of a troubled past. Somehow the the girl feels no disgust or fear, quite the opposite, she drew it, enthralled. She sees something special in her new "friend" and she decides to bring it back with her at home, to care for it. One day, while following the cockroach, the girl ventures into the woods by herself, getting lost among the trees and losing her way back. The father will see her again but with a surprising final plot twist. Through three weaved timelines, the film flows between different perspectives, creating a connection between reality and imagination. Even the parent-child bond is unexpectedly reversed. The concept for the short film is rooted in the need to explore the relationship between parents and children, and the challenges a young person faces while growing up, becoming an adult, and searching for their own identity. Children grow up and learn how to make their first steps into the world through the eyes and actions of their parents. For children, a key element to understanding themselves and the world is provided by the parent's carefulness. On the other hand, when parents are negligent, distant, or distracted, the children can suffer different and lasting consequences. The original soundtrack, composed specifically for the film, follows the characters through different timelines, adding depth to their emotions and creating a subtle and emotional continuity between imagination and reality. Sounds and music play a key role in highlighting and underlining the transitions between past, present, and dreamlike perception. The color grading is intentionally non-uniform. It helps differentiate the dreamlike sequences (linked to the mother's imagination) from the ones that play the reality, emphasizing the fracture between what was versus what is being lived in the present. The cockroach, a key character of the narrative, was created using 3D software and animations. That has been quite the only way to direct and manage those movements and actions otherwise way too difficult (or impossible) to achieve. A controlled environment and the chance to use a 3D directed model, have helped to make the cockroach symbolism even more striking within the film's storytelling.

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