CARNE
MOTHERHOOD CUTS DEEP
THE FIRST SHORT FILM PRODUCTION IN ITALY
WITH CHILDCARE SERVICES FOR CAST AND CREW
This is a story about loneliness—about that particular, unexpected, and exhausting loneliness that comes with becoming a mother. Many of us have lived through this experience, or continue to recognize those same feelings and emotions in the words and stories of other women—so many women. With CARNE, we chose to give shape to all of this through a metaphor, using genre to portray emotional states that are too often hidden, unspeakable, deemed inappropriate for a mother—for a woman who gives life, who protects and nurtures. We want to tell the story of this sacrifice: how it affects the protagonist of this story, but not only her—it touches other women around her, all enclosed in their own silence, sometimes by choice, sometimes as the result of repression. CARNE seeks to provoke, to represent the confusion and solitude that a mother succumbs to, and for which it feels unthinkable to ask for help. “Because everyone has already gone through it… because everyone has overcome that moment… because if you’re tired, you shouldn’t have done it… because motherhood is wonderful… and because you must always be wonderful…”
CARNE is a short film written
by Laura Plebani and Giada Mazzoleni
Directed by Laura Plebani
Produced by Giada Mazzoleni
PAGURO FILM,RED SLED FILMS,341PRODUCTION
CARNE by Laura Plebani is a short film about parental loneliness.
Just as importantly, CARNE shot in February 2026 was a parent-friendly set: anyone in the crew or among the talent who had difficulty managing their children due to set hours was able to rely on a childcare service organized by the production.
We want to send a message: we want to have children and continue making films—to keep being directors, production designers, production managers, and much more.
With CARNE, we want to show that a childcare protocol enabling the inclusion of parents—even in a job with no fixed hours like ours—is possible.
SYNOPSIS
Claudia is the mother of a beautiful baby who is now entering the delicate phase of weaning. Constantly alone—with a partner abroad and friends she never asks for help—she tries to rely on her mother’s advice to navigate daily challenges, but her mother seems unable to remember anything from when Claudia herself was a child. Even breastfeeding becomes too difficult, as the baby’s early teething injures her. As the baby begins to lose weight, the pediatrician urges Claudia more and more insistently to start weaning, but her first attempts end in failure. Worried about her inability to properly nourish her child, Claudia seeks support from a lactation consultant, who reassures her: she already is everything her baby needs...
Laura Plebani - CARNE director
There was a precise moment, a few months after I became a mother, when I thought that pregnancy and motherhood had a lot to do with horror. From that spark, Carne began to take shape.
There are now several films about motherhood and the postpartum period, about depression and baby blues. But in my experience as a viewer, in what I’ve seen so far, something often feels missing: in particular, the experience of the sheer intensity a woman faces as she transforms into a mother—the isolation, the visceral sense that the absolute good or harm of her child seems to depend on every single decision she must make, day after day.
At the center of the film is Claudia. She guides my gaze and defines the emotions and impressions of everything that happens to her and around her. Claudia’s child will always be filmed only marginally; I will focus instead on gestures and details of his relationship with his mother: a small hand clutching a lock of hair, a mouth chewing, the nape of his neck turning to look for her.
And then there is the world around her: Claudia finds herself within a system of solitudes, of glances that never meet, of opposing and imposed directions. The spaces she moves through—especially the pediatrician’s office and Linda’s consultation room—are inhospitable, claustrophobic, and suffocating. The outside world is often reduced to a repetitive, disturbing off-screen sound, just as her mother remains off-screen—a distant, confused voice.
Claudia’s arc ends when she crosses the line and makes the choice that will lead to her own annihilation.
