Under your skin

A not too distant future, a gloomy dystopia. The digital permeates everyday life and the body. All movements are subjected to a strict surveillance regime.

In this world of omnipresent competition, Max is not the most successful one. Yelled at by his bosses, shunned by his work colleagues, he tries to get through his meagre daily routine. To compensate, he has created a virtual world that belongs entirely to himself. A campy retreat, full of kitsch and colours. Here he can escape surveillance. Here he can be alone and free.

To complete his fairytale world, Max has constructed a number of sailors who fulfil his every wish. Max has modelled the most beautiful of them after his work colleague Ken. One day, however, Ken, the real Ken, finds out about it. Without Max knowledge, he slips into his secret fantasy world and takes over the mask of his double, just to see what Max is up to. He enjoys playing Max puppet. He enjoys playing with Max. Until Max finally becomes suspicious.

Director's Statement

'"Under Your Skin" is not a perfect film. It's the opposite, it's a film that takes part in a cinema of defiance, of imperfection, a cinema povera. Well, call it defiance, call it impatience, call it even willful ignorance about the matter of facts. But let’s face it. If we hadn’t done "Under Your Skin" the way we did, with next to no money and much too few people, it would have never been done. It wouldn’t have been done this way, it wouldn’t have been done “better”, it would not have been done at all.

It’s a cinema that doesn’t care too much about how it’s done. Or, to put it more precisely, that doesn’t care enough to lay off it just because we don’t have the money to do what our imagination leads us to. It’s a kind of cinema povera, a cinema of defiance, that tries to go as far as one can go with the means you have, ignoring all regards of professionalism and rules of propriety.

It’s a cinema that embraces and undermines kitsch and theatricality, that tries to find its poetics in and beyond the image and the skin of their protagonists. But first of all it’s a cinema of stubborn imagination that fight its way into reality against all odds. It brings together a group of people that don’t care about how it’s being done, about mainstream standards or the rules of the (gay film) market, and that work together to search for an aesthetic that’s new, fresh and awkward.'