"The shock while filming was that everything became so normal!"

Documentary Weekly met with director Pia Hellenthal at Sheffield Doc/Fest 19 to talk about her new film, ‘Searching Eva’, ahead of its UK premiere.

According to Eva, “the reason they made a movie out of my life is that one day I’m shooting up in a public toilet and the next I’m bleaching my teeth in a jacuzzi”.

Eva is a 25 year-old Italian poet, recovering drug addict, model, sex worker, Berliner, feminist, pet-owner and artist who seemingly declared privacy an outdated concept at the age 14 when she first started blogging.

After discovering Eva's blog online, director Pia Hellenthal, along with Creative Producer Georgia Malatrasi, set out to find out more and attempt to document her life.

The result is a fly on the wall deep dive into Eva’s psychedelic, melancholic and dramatic day-to-day life. The viewer is made to reconsider the concept of identity and challenge society’s unbending will to make young women conform to predetermined ideals.

Just like Eva herself, the film is impossible to put in a box, label or categorise in any way, which makes it a beautiful oddity of the documentary genre.

'Searching Eva' had it's UK premiere at Sheffield Doc/Fest 19 and is now available online in Italy and the US.