We grow up influenced by the gaze of others, but it is by observing that we build ourselves.

The speaker is a mother.

Her daughter Laura is 16 and it is time to let her go but first she wants to tell you about her life.

She was a very reserved child and loved to be alone to write and read.

When on weekends she had to go to her father's she would cry.

She was very thin, ate very little and vomited.

She needed to feel well-liked therefore she embodied the form of the obedient and pretty child but there was always a rebel in her.

Reality was something she entered every now and then just because she needed to: after school she constantly changed places to live and had relationships that lasted very little, there was always something wrong.

Still she waited for a man to come and rescue her to heal her of her malaise and her inability to be anywhere.

After graduation she meets a guy with whom she has a daughter whom she addresses in this short film.

Idyllic years after the birth of the child, of illusion and suspension: they loved each other and were good together.

Following a move to Paris, Laura's father does not get along well and their relationship breaks down.

Being a mother is not easy, she observes, it takes a back seat; men can afford to work, go out, be projected outside while a mother's life is first and foremost through her children.

One day on a train an anxiety attack, a very difficult situation, panic.

Two years of psychotherapy and fear for the daughter she had to protect anyway: a very long journey during which the specialist reveals to her that she was abused by her father as a child.

Two years of hypnosis to recover all that she had erased but that continued to haunt her experience.

Posttraumatic stress disorder returned in waves.

Acupuncture, physical therapy, psychotherapy: Laura's mother was a woman in the making, the memories , the images of what she had suffered from her father were devastating.

She understands that she still has to save herself and begins to study the Cinderella myth and see how she gets out of it.

Art she believes was the most important tool for emancipation along with feminism and meeting women.

Her grandmother when she was a child gave her a video camera and from that day it became the tool she used to live and work with.

She recounts that her father's was not the only violence she suffered; there were physical and verbal assaults, whether on the street, on the subway, or at work.

From all of this, including harassment and gender insults she wants to protect her daughter and all the daughters in the world, but she knows that she will not be able to do so unless she communicates her discomfort and tells that what saved her was not the pretty girl she was, not even the one who sought refuge in a man, but the rebel who was always present inside her.

Life is a struggle and one must fight.

Archival images, demonstrations, debates, Me Too, confrontations, dialogues, cultural and historical paths. She explores the daily challenges and struggles of women through the lens of a mother who writes a touching letter to her daughter through a journey as personal as it is universal with experiences of suffering, resistance and hope.

Staderoli not only shows the difficulties faced by women, but also celebrates their ability to unite and support each other.

She concludes by stating that she is angry about what she has suffered and always will be angry about all that women experience every day.

The call is to be FREE and REBEL.

One woman's call to all women, daughters, mothers, sisters, friends: a powerful and traumatic work, an act of love and rebellion.

16-Jun-2024 by Beatrice