Nicole, an Italian teenage TikToker is on holiday with her parents, a once proud couple today crumpled by a fading beauty syndrome. The family is in Egypt, at an all-inclusive resort. She starts playing an online video game to escape the boredom and the paradoxical environment she’s landed in. In the game she meets Ya, an avatar eerily resembling hers, and a much better fighter than she is. The two avatars are instantly intrigued by each other, and over time, feel an attraction as unexpected as it is sensual. Straying from the battlefield, they keep embarking on side quests. Observing the surrounding virtual landscapes, they search for intimacy. Suddenly Niki, Nicole’s avatar, discovers that behind Ya is Yamen, a young Syrian refugee stranded in a camp in Beirut, an Orwellian conundrum where people are waiting for a future that may never come. The fates of Yamen and Nicole and their avatars Ya and Niki intertwine, triggering a relationship that will shape their identities.
Ra Di Martino
