Tócame was born from lots of desire to make a love letter to skateboarding, my first visual piece. This was my first ever “film”, done as an exercise for University.

Where did it come from?
Before Tócame, I had already imagined a whole idea of a “skateboarding film” with ‘Little Blue Flower-From Station to Station”, one of my first ever ideas for a film.
I knew I couldn’t make that happen in a short format, so I decided to synthesise the central idea into a fun short film, much like a section of LBF, where the character, Celeste, chases her double around the train stations of underground Berlin. I had my story; our character would meet a skater and would fall in love with the idea of skateboarding, chasing it, copying it, and becoming it. I just needed to make it its own story. As I usually write first in my head as I walk around, I started to search for inspiration around me on my way home. Wondering how this could be, I came across a couple discussing as they walked past me. The woman was crying; the man was angry. They both held discomfort, and even though she was letting a tear go, I saw as much anger as he had within. This fast experience made me reflect on my current relationship with my life; I carried the same feeling inside. I continued to walk, and rapidly, I saw my emotions change. I was looking down, and for some reason, I sensed the push to look left. There, I saw a woman putting heavy boxes inside the trunk of her car. She turned around, and in slow-motion, I witnessed how she looked at me and smiled; it was a very comfortable, warm, genuine smile. I don’t know why she smiled at me, or even why she turned, but she did, and everything was complete for me. My feelings were changed, influenced by the people.
At this moment, I felt the lightbulb light brightly inside my head.
This would be the film, a film about a smile.

How did it happen?
I got very excited, as always, about my idea. I wrote the script, if you could call it one, in my iPhone notes. For the central character, I had a dear skate friend in mind, someone who is always so bright and beautiful, fun and happy, the very talented Noa Mofatt. In the beginning, I wanted it to be two skaters who attracted the character into the world of skateboarding. I had another friend in mind, someone who related to the world of clowning, another practice which I wanted to pursue. The person couldn’t make it, so I took charge of the skater character. This meant Noa and I had to take turns with the camera. Luckily, we also had the help of Noa’s friend Mai Hoang, who was a big part of the short.
I had planned the film to be done around Noa’s home in Neukölln; everything was pretty open except for the ending, which needed to be on the bridge as a meaningful place for the character's change, which is bridging realities. We went around the neighbourhood, shot with my iPhone, and with the help of Noa, we asked people to help by giving us their smiles. Maybe that was the most difficult and fun thing in the project. It was very cold, so we tried to do everything as fast as possible and went back home.
I edited the film fairly quickly and easily. The most difficult part was adding the music.
The music was meant to be funny, fast, weird, and finally elevating and transcendental. I experimented for the first time with playing songs backwards, changing the pitch and speed, a way of arranging music which evolved more in my following works.

What does it mean?
The character (unnamed) steps into the world and is affected by the energy of an angry person. This negative energy is quickly changed by people around her, through smiles, leading her to keep going with positive energy. Through this energy, she finds the charismatic yet strange essence and smile of a skater, who decides to show our character the powers of skateboarding, seeing invisible doors and teleporting around the streets. Our character is moved and decides to follow the skater around, carrying the positivity of everyone who inspired her. Our character decides to copy the skater, even if they don't possess the tools of skateboarding. Finally, the skater (which represents, in essence, skateboarding itself) gifts our character a skateboard—after they showed genuine care and will to do skateboarding, copying it and pushing through without even owning one.
I represent this with the idea of touch, and how skateboarding and film touched me on a deeper level than the physical.
Finally, their reality is changed, and they see another character with an even “weirder” smile. Inviting them into a world of unconventional people with different perspectives on life. Their change in perspective is shown as our character walks backwards home, changing the way they perceive reality, much as skateboarding does for us.

Tócame is the need to find meaningful relationships and experiences. The tale of how I searched for myself through the medium of skateboarding.
It is a deeper look into different realities that exist among our “normal” everyday lives.
The start of my theme exploration as a filmmaker