Trans Coming-Of-Age Short ‘All Those Sensations In My Belly’ Is Now Online

Marko Dješka’s coming-of-age short All Those Sensations in My Belly is now available to watch on Vimeo.

Released in 2020, the short screened in competition at numerous prestigious festivals including Palm Springs, Vilnius, Annecy, and Ottawa, winning best script at the latter.

In All Those Sensations in My Belly, Matia Anna Pleše narrates several key milestones from her life. In the story, while transitioning from male to female the protagonist struggles to find a genuine, intimate relationship with a heterosexual man. At its core though, the film is also about Matia learning to accept herself and to not take life too seriously.

There is sadness in Matia’s frequent solitude, but there is also a wonderful sense of humor in the film. The animation is often playful and cartoonish as characters squash and stretch to meet the needs of the animators. Traumatic scenes of life-changing events are often sandwiched between whimsical passages that help to paint a more holistic picture of the lead character’s life.

This is perhaps best demonstrated in the film’s nightclub scene. It’s fun, energetic, and brightly colored, but also downright terrifying. One minute, you’re bouncing in your chair to the base-driven music as Matia tears up the dance floor. The next, your heart races as she fights her way out of a violent sexual assault in the club’s bathroom.

The short unspools in chronological order, and When Matia finally realizes that she is a woman, the aesthetic changes completely. Backgrounds are colored in, characters are more detailed, and her world becomes a much more inviting place, although still not perfect. Again, that contrast serves to make the short feel that much more authentic.