story:
A Portuguese girl in her mid 20’s (isn’t she American?) calls herself @nobody on the internet (What is her name?) and cams on Instagram for a living.
It’s 2020 and Europe is about to go on lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but our protagonist finds herself alone and isolated in her family’s old Lisbon apartment for a very different reason. She hasn't lived there in years, but doesn't have any other options right now. We are not quite sure what happened - quite frankly, she doesn't either - but It has something to do with her mother (a former alcoholic - we hope - who was way too consumed with her own issues to take care of NOBODY as a child), an ex-fiancé (American, Silicon Valley type - kind of an asshole to begin with but she was too young and in love notice) and a broken engagement...
The old apartment she grew up in isn’t terrible, but waaay too many memories. At least she thinks those are real memories - ever since she was a child, her mother and her doctor have always told her she has a tendency to make things up... that she is an unrealiable narrator.
Needless to say, NOBODY can’t really bring herself to unpack, so the rooms look at once inhabited and abandoned. Ghostly. Kind of like herself.
The short-film follows 5 days into her life.
Alone and completly out of touch with reality, she feels the need to control every single aspect of her day. She is also suferring fom severe agorapobia.
She would like to be anybody but herself. Escape.
No wander she’s so enamored with the possibilities and instant gratifications of social media. Online prostitution comes as a natural next step. She gets to keep human interactions at a transactional, superficial level, create a different identity, speak a different language (English, the mother tongue of this universe called Internet) and meticulously craft her image. Just take a look at her Instagram page - all those filters, she practically looks like a VR character.
But her desire for perfection goes beyond that. Like a reversed Pinnochio, NOBODY really wishes she could be a doll, a robot or even a hologram, like the Japanese popstar Hatsune Miku. Being human seems to come with so much uncertainty and suffering. Not to mention, her beauty will fade, her body will fall apart, nothing will stay the same. But those digital girls will remain shiny forever and 2+2 will aways be 4. Things would be so much easier if she was machine: battery, switch, light bulb - done! No questions. All answers.
Can NOBODY regain her humanity? Relinquish control and still be the writer of her own story? Will she be able to face her past and change the present? What actually happened? Will she be able to trust, connect and love again? Could it be happening right now, with one of her virtual clients? Does @santo84 feel the same way? Will they meet in person? Is any of it real? Or just another illusion?... How do you know the difference?
Portuguese actor Carloto Cotta, one the leading actors of his generation, will play the part of @santo84. Cotta starred in Gabriel Abrantes and Daniel Schmidt's Diamantino (Best Actor Golden Globes Portugal 2019 and Winner and Grand Prix at Cannes - Critics Week), Miguel Gomes' Tabu (Winner of the Silver Bear and Fipresci at Berlinale), Eugene Green's Como Fernando Pessoa Salvou Portugal, and João Salaviza's short-film Arena, (Palme d'Or - Cannes). He also co-starred in Ira Sach's Frankie (Cannes Official Selection). Cotta and Marcela Jacobina first worked together in 2018, playing husband and wife for Bernardo Lopes' Moço (2020), set to premiere at IndieLisboa in September.
visual concept:
In terms of genre, I guess we could say this is a digital fantasy meets psychological thriller. Perhaps the most important aesthetic element of the film is that of only showing the characters faces via screens and mirrors. This came about as way to visually explore the concept of Narcissism. Narcissism as a personality disorder is not the obsession with oneself, but the obsession with others. The need to control how others view you and how you appear to the world. This is a result of the individual’s complete disconnection from him/herself and inability to regulate their emotions. In our film, it poses the question: If one needs to be seen in order to exist, what is left when nobody is watching?
my journey as an artist and what this film means to me:
Hi, my name is Marcela Jacobina :) This is my first time writing and directing a film. I will also play the main character, @nobody.
I started my career at 18 years-old working as a freelance fashion journalist for magazines such as Vogue and Bazaar in my native Brazil. In 2012, at 21-years-old, I moved to NYC to pursue a career as a stylist, a job that tought me everything I know about creating imagery and collaborating with other artists. In 2018, I saw myself slowly moving away from fashion as I felt the need to create more complex stories and characters. Finally, filmmaking and acting became not only an obsession, but the only career path that made sense for me. In 2019, during a trip to Rio de Janeiro, I was suddenly cast in a major telenovela by the Brazilian giant Rede Globo - if you haven't heard of Globo, think Hollywood in Latin America. I had basically no acting experience, aside from a small part in a short movie, but decided to take the challenge. So after being away from home for most of my 20’s, I found myself right back where I had started.
During this past year in Brazil, I was able to finish writing this very personal script and, through this fictitious-yet-biographical story, make peace with many of demons. I started to develop these ideas and write the fist drafts at the end of 2018, under the guidance of my dear friend and mentor Barry Jenkins, who wrote a beautiful letter of support to this project. Please find an excerpt from from it below:
"Marcela is the perfect filmmaker to tell this story and wrestle with the issues explored in the script. As a young woman coming into her own in the internet age, Marcela’s relationship to this material is deeply personal and her understanding of the complicated tension between images and their social impact is incredibly invaluable. As the writer, director and main actress of the film, I’ve watched as she’s taken her own navigation of the psychological topics explored in the script and woven them into a narrative that is both visually urgent and socially relevant. (...) I believe that NOBODY is one of the clearest artistic depictions of the emotional void created by an increasing reliance on social media and the effects such voids have on young women in the world today."
BARRY JENKINS, September 22nd, 2019
As COVID-19 happened, it felt natural to incorporate mentions of the pandemic reality to the script. What an interesting (and tragic) coincidence that for over a year I had been writing about someone in voluntary isolation, as the world now struggled to adapt to a new normal of “body-less" relationships.
The fact that I will be directing myself in this project also feels very adequate. Our protagonist is constantly curating her image and putting herself on camera. As she obsesses over every inch of her body and performs for the world wide web, I will also be forced to dissect my own acting after every take.
Finally, as a 29-year-old woman raised in the internet/social media era, I know first hand how this culture can affect the mind, body and soul of young girls everywhere. I truly believe that cinema is about empathy, and perhaps by making this story deeply personal, I can expose something that is bigger than myself and help others in their own journey of self-discovery.
This campaign is the last stage of our financial plan, raising the rest of the budget needed for production. It means so much for us to have your support. Help us make this film become a reality!
thank you for reading <3 :) xx