CalArtian Mariia Lapidus’ documentary The Second Skin was among the winners at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR)’s Tiger Short Competition. The awards ceremony was held at the WORM arts venue in Rotterdam, Netherlands, on Feb. 2.
The 62-minute film, which was produced in Mexico, uses stop-motion, performance and pseudo-documentary interviews to re-enact the testimonies of survivors of sexual violence in Russia. The film had its world premiere at IFFR on Feb. 4.
Lapidus, an MFA 2 student in CalArts’ Program in Film and Video, researched, wrote, directed, and edited the film.
She thanked her collaborators, as well as the women whose stories she told, in an Instagram post in December, when The Second Skin was selected for the festival.
“This selection truly means the world to us. It allows all the women who stand behind this film to feel seen, accepted, and understood. And that feeling gives us hope—that violence can be confronted and perhaps even transformed through art, or at the very least, that we can continue trying,” she wrote.
The Tiger Short Award includes a prize worth €5,000 ($5897.75).
