Diego Marcon 
La Gola 

At the center of Diego Marcon's film La Gola (The Belly), created for the Kunstverein in Hamburg, is the correspondence between Gianni and Rossana. The characters are portrayed by hyperrealistic puppets whose eyes and facial expressions are digitally animated. The plot of La Gola connects three levels, each of which builds to a climax – on the culinary level, a sumptuous dessert; on the medical level, Rossana's mother's sensory illness; and finally, on the cinematic level, the rising crescendo. The characters, relationships, narrative structure, and classification within a specific genre are all characterized by irresolvable ambiguity. In the shots, the inner and outer worlds are converged in a heightened magical realism. Even though La Gola features only two protagonists, the film reveals an interwoven web of relationships characterized by obligation and pleasure. Told in frontal close-ups, Gianni, by daylight and birdsong, raves about the skills of his cook, Baptiste; his life is geared toward enhancing his own pleasure. Rossana, by contrast, at night, amid increasing lightning and thunder, vividly describes her mother's physical suffering and the progression of her illness. Her life is characterized by the renunciation of her own pleasure, her entire existence dedicated to caring for her mother. Even if asymmetrical, there is a mutual inability to recognize the written language as the other's actual, embodied experience. The scenic juxtaposition and the interplay of day and night reinforce the defining contrast between the two characters' autonomy and conditionality. A hallmark of the narrative structure is its inescapable teleological progression.