Between the desire to bring a life into the world and the impossibility of controlling it, an invisible and mysterious territory opens up. After three interrupted pregnancies, on the threshold of forty, I try to understand where the desire to become a mother comes from, and how much it truly belongs to us. It is in the forest that this search finds another space. Following the tracks of the wolf and of wild animals, I learn to question what exists without revealing itself, what leaves traces and continually slips beyond our gaze. My body and the forest thus become territories in resonance, traversed by life and death, by the desire to see and the need to accept what cannot be seen. When my son is born, the research takes on a different form. Together, we return to the forest, following the wolf’s tracks, learning that perhaps encountering the other means precisely giving up the desire to possess its gaze—to step aside and make room for the mystery of the living world.
Chiara Brambilla is a director and screenwriter. She made her debut as a director in 2006 with the documentary Casa Plastica. In 2008 she won the Anteprima Doc Festival in Bellaria with the film Uncle Sem and the Bosnian Dream. He won the 2019 MIBACT writing award with the documentary film project Mondo Sommerso. His latest feature films are Divine (2010) and Sciare in salita (2017).