Milky Way

An old Venetian province is the backdrop to the plots and unhealthy relationships in Miguel Vila’s Milky Way.

With Marco and Stella's lukewarm romance already on the ropes, Daniele's insistent intrusions aren’t helping. But when Marco meets Lulu, a single mother and femme fatale with enlarged breasts and a mysterious background, he develops an interest that soon veers into obsession and awakens in him a problematic and long dormant sexuality. With a voyeuristic gaze, Vila lays his characters bare, observing them in their hypocrisies, insecurities, and unmentionable desires. Vila’s cartooning is alive. Working in a mostly naturalistic mode, he distorts his characters just enough to imbue them with a visceral charge that fuels the narrative’s lust.

A psychological and grotesque character drama that doubles as an erotic thriller about erotic obsession, mourning, a sense of inadequacy, and the search for surrogates of affection, Milky Way won prizes and garnered considerable acclaim upon release in Italy in 2022.