Deep in the Venezuelan plains, 14-year-old Anick, an untamed tomboy, and her mother, 40-year-old Elena, run a cattle ranch. Fearing the expropriation of her land by armed groups, Elena has long coped with her paranoia with fleeting relationships and drinking.

Elena’s fragility has not only made Anick feel responsible for her mother’s wellbeing, but also shaped her view of the world. While convinced she needs to be a man to survive,
Anick feels the impending threat of womanhood in her developing body.

One morning, Anick discovers a dismembered cow. She assumes it was the “man-eater”, a tiger that has supposedly been stalking the cattle in the region. However, her assumption is challenged upon learning that armed groups
recently invaded a nearby ranch.

Needing to escape her suffocating surroundings, Anick decides to go on a quest plagued with dangers to uncover the true source of the violence.

In 2001, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez made the expropriation of farmland central to his revolution. Consequently, anarchy broke out, instigating armed groups to take over private land using intimidating methods.

Needing to delve deeper into these events of my homeland, I traveled to the region in search of stories. However, my research pivoted when I met the “Man-Woman.” I soon
realised that the nickname, given to her by her community, was an attempt to define the complexity of femininity of the increasingly modern age. Thus, I dedicated myself to portraying rural Venezuela through the gaze of the plainswomen, who find themselves caught in the middle of the contemporary and turbulent socio-political landscape.

I do not intend to depict a specific historical or media event, but rather to explore a universe, an atmosphere, the severity of a natural world and of human relationships marked by survival. It is an attempt to connect a condition of vulnerability and ethereality with the hostility of a rural life.