When Vanessa—the intriguing and confused girlfriend of a team player—runs away from home and hides in Maia's mother's shelter, a bond develops between the two, and Maia is able to confide in someone for the first time about her doubts about her identity.
Both driven by the need to break free from the roles their small community has forced them to play, Maia and Vanessa begin a journey in search of their own identity and sexuality, fluid and restless as only adolescence can be.
DIRECTOR'S NOTES
Zen on thin ice It is a coming-of-age story that follows the emotional journey of Maia, known as Zen: a teenager struggling with her gender identity, and therefore misunderstood and bullied by her peers.
Even though I never played hockey, Maia and Vanessa's turmoil is part of my personal story.
The uneasiness of knowing you're "different," the magic of being attracted to someone of your own gender without knowing what's happening or even being able to name that feeling, the desire to be seen and accepted for who you are: these emotions were the essence of my life as a teenager and today they are the essence of the film.
As a director, I've always been interested in bringing to life and center stage characters like Maia, who live on the margins of their communities. Zen in the Ice Rift speaks precisely to the fragile boundary between wanting to belong to a group and being oneself without constraints.
The film, in fact, tells of the discomfort and struggles faced by those who do not conform to gender roles and the heteronormativity imposed by our society.
I tried to tell Maia's story by juxtaposing her emotions with the beautiful yet forgotten landscape of the Emilian Apennines.
I wanted to explore the relationship between the production of landscapes and the identity of those who live in those territories, working on the idea of an emotional landscape: a tool to visually stimulate the viewer and accompany them into the characters' deeper dimension.
I wanted to make a film rooted in the LGBT+ community and our local communities, but with the aim of leading audiences on that universal journey of self-discovery during the troubled years of adolescence.
– Margherita Ferri
