A DIARY OF BEING BEAUTIFUL

A DIARY OF BEING BEAUTIFUL

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THE DOCUMENTARY​

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Diary of Being Beautiful is an experimental documentary that functions as a visual duet. It weaves together eight years of raw, observational footage of Aitana's meteoric rise from a shy teenager to an international Ballroom legend with a staged, poetic layer representing my own internal struggle.

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We follow her from her bedroom in South-East Amsterdam to the underground clubs of Paris and the icons of New York, from a hesitant student to a mentor and Legendary Star. Three hundred hours, shot mainly alone across eight years, never on a schedule, always when something was happening. An archive that reads like a diary. Around her are the friends and kids of her scene, becoming alongside her.

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As Aitana conquers the world with her external manifestation of beauty, I question my own: is my gender identity a product of collective or personal trauma, or a liberation from a commercialised vocabulary of beauty? Looking in the mirror has been a puzzle for as long as I can remember. Over these eight years it turned from something I wanted to solve into something I could stand in. That's the second layer: portraits, poetry, recorded conversations about beauty. Not a story but a collection, running alongside the transformation that is really hers.

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An intimate, unfiltered exploration of what it means to claim space, to transition, and to finally allow oneself to be beautiful.

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Interested feel free to contact me!