"Our Performance"
by Maria Karla Solis & Wen Yu Lo
It’s all self-inflicted: internalized standards and expectations that linger long after the overt pressures have faded.
The camera is not an outside observer but a mirror of her own thoughts, anxieties, and self-expectations.
We explore the idea of women navigating being watched, judged, and objectified - but by ourselves.
The camera in our story acts like the relentless gaze in Lux Æterna, is not just an external force but a reflection of the woman’s own self-scrutiny and internalized expectations.
As she moves through her day, descending stairs, making coffee, struggling with heels and papers in the elevator, working out in an impractical outfit: the cycle repeats.
Whenever she catches the camera’s gaze, she instantly performs.
The story follows a woman’s day, from waking up to going through her routine…captured in a style that blurs documentary and performance, breaking the fourth wall whenever she becomes aware of the camera watching her.
She wakes up in a gown and heels, visibly uncomfortable, but the moment she notices the camera, she shifts. Begins posing, becoming statuesque, performing perfection.
This performance is no longer about external demands.
No one is telling her to wear heels make coffee or to the gym.
Her poised exterior masks the internal tension, a struggle between authenticity and the relentless pursuit of an ideal that she alone enforces.
The repeated moments of breaking the fourth wall capture the fractured self-awareness and the exhaustion of constantly performing, embodying a tension between authenticity and imposed perfection.
At the cafe, the smallest act, eating a pastry - becomes a performance when observed. She restricts herself, revealing how deeply ingrained these standards are, how much she polices herself.
We finish as we catch her removing a heel in frustration but putting it back on when she realizes she’s still being watched. The irritation and near breakdown express the exhausting internal battle - it’s not patriarchy or men forcing these standards, but her own conflicted relationship with herself.
We highlight the space women inhabit, rife with conflicting demands. Not solely as a battle against external patriarchy, it invites a more nuanced reflection on the internal struggles women face in trying to reconcile their desires, fears, and imposed ideals.
Battling the complex interplay between self-expression, self-discipline, and self-imposed “madness” - how women sometimes become their own harshest critics and performers.
This is meant to offer a powerful, empathetic portrait of modern womanhood as both a site of conflict and a potential space for reclaiming agency.
The “madness” is not about victimhood; it’s about the nuanced ways women hold themselves and each other to ideals.
In many ways, this internal “possession” by self-imposed standards echoes the themes explored by Clarice Lispector on how female hysteria or “madness” can be a space of both conflict and empowerment, a struggle for authenticity amid societal and internalized pressures.
Creative Direction: Maria Karla Solis
Photo & Video: Wen Yu Lo
Casting: Vision Street Casting (Ale Carnevale)