Free Edge

Free Edge was born at the intersection of two ideas that have fascinated me for a long time. On the one hand I’ve always found physical, professional interactions (massage, manicure, medical tests) bizarrely intimate and fascinating from a social perspective. I wanted to explore to what degree this kind of dynamic could be transformative/therapeutic and overwhelming to a character of acute sensitivity. On the other hand there’s unconventional love stories, the screenplay is that of a strange, unrequited love at first sight, where one half of the pair experiences something profoundly, life-changingly beautiful and the other is just going through a part of their routine. Their specific social conditions allow to examine and deconstruct romantic attachment from another angle, where the sexuality of the characters —Hugo being openly gay— would erase the sexual attraction that defines “love at first sight” and the context immediately establishes an invisible barrier between the two.

The main character has a strained, anxious relationship to the world around him, and his hands are the most direct, visual representation of it, so it seemed only logical that his "therapy" went through his hands as well. This first meeting is a breath of fresh air for someone who has been seriously struggling to breathe, for the audience to understand his somewhat irrational attachment to her, as if she was a very small bridge to the person he would like to become, to a world where he where he is much freer and alive but also much more vulnerable.