Exuvia

Exuvia, based on the story Dancing Dolls by Cristina Eléni Kontoglou (minima&moralia 2025), directed by Studio Novecento, with music by Giacomo Laser. Exuvia, from the Latin exuviae, meaning “to strip,” is the abandoned layer of the exoskeleton, the empty, shiny shell; not just skin, but a cast of the animal, the moment when it is vulnerable because the new integument is still soft. A story of skin and obsession. A dream too real to be evoked, too unreal to be touched. A story about soma, the somatized body, centered on dermorexia, the obsession for perfect, glassy skin. The place is also a time of greenery and cracks, a unity with the protagonist Chloi, who cannot escape her own mind nor what someone else has wanted of her. Her mother’s voice breaks through in the background, reminding her of when, as a child, she forced her to believe she was ugly, inflicting a skin and body care regimen that over the years turns into a pathological withdrawal. The itchiness, the thin skin, are reactions of the body and mind rebelling against an unattainable state of perfection. The deliberately timeless, beautiful, and elusive place reflects Chloi’s own psychological utopia, and like her, it is abandoned to itself, enveloping her in an extra layer of skin, a shell in which to hide.

Directed by Luca Sorgato (studio novecento) Giacomo Laser (studio novecento) (Italy)