A fantastic premise executed to perfection in Original Skin. Filmmaker Mdhamiri á Nkemi has created a bold, sensual film about identity and exploration, leaving you contemplative about your identity and comfort with who you are.

In an alternate reality where having sex entails switching bodies with the other person, a young woman called Bea (Sorcha Groundsell) struggles to truly be herself, challenging her small, traditional community where swapping is taboo.

Mdhamiri Á Nkemi poses the question to his audience in Original Skin: if you are uncomfortable with who you are as a person as if the skin you are “living in” feels like someone else’s, would you switch out if given the opportunity? We want to grow and change, so how do you manage if you are stuck in an environment that restricts that? This is especially the case when you are growing up; you want, like Bea, played by Sorcha Groundsell, to figure out who you are and to give yourself an identity you feel comfortable in. However, as young people soon figure out, our identities never stay settled; they evolve.

With Groundsell’s Bea, she is so uncomfortable with herself that she has been nipping her arm when feeling anxious, leaving it bruised. This evident discomfort in herself has not gone unnoticed in her strict convent-style community. Taken in by an older sister who knows what Bea needs, she goes off on her exploration. From here, Nkemi’s film goes even deeper than you imagined.

As mentioned in the synopsis, this is a world where being with someone sexually has your bodies switched, but what happens if you do not have sex twice to revert to yourself? Again, the questions come flying with some answers subtly sprinkled throughout the 12-minute film (with a meaningful moment when the older sister realises what Bea has done). It is some terrific world-building that allows the story to flow as well as it does. From the simple costume work that shows the “purity” of the community Bea is from the fact that the one item the older sister has that isn’t like that is a jacket that is made to stand out. There is a grim bareness to Bea’s life, but it isn’t as if she lives in a complex somewhere. In this reality, she lives in a typical street. It’s wholly engaging, and you actively want to learn more about it.

Nkemi has filled his film with small moments that allow us to immediately understand each character or simple story beats. It all clicks together so well when combined with the performances from the small cast. Groundsell does some excellent work with the insecure and anxious Bea, whereas Olive Gray is on par with her as her confident partner, Lexi. Gray has the difficult task of mimicking the work Groundsell did when the two eventually swap bodies after their sexual encounter. But she has to ramp it up more; this is an entirely new world for Bea; she is literally looking at another person in the mirror. How will she cope? Can she cope? Even worse, what about her community? Can she go back? Gray wordlessly conveys all of those questions for us to devour and, best of all, makes it all believable, which is a story as intimate as this is vital for it to succeed.

Original Skin sets the stage for something more to come from this story but also gives the audience enough to be satisfied with what we get. With a concept as interesting as the one Nkemi and writer Eve Hedderwick Turner have conjured up here, you will want to see what else they can bring to the world they have created.

Original Skin can be seen at the Tribeca Festival on Thursday, 6th June, at 5:15 pm at the AMC 19th St. East 6, Tuesday, 11th June, at 8:45 pm at the AMC 19th St. East at 6 and Saturday, 15th June, at 5:45 pm at the AMC 19th St. East 6.

★★★★ 

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