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The first time I saw Bizet’s Carmen, I was deeply moved. The music was physical—it pulsed through the body. The story was heartbreaking, and the character of Carmen was simply hypnotic. That experience made me reflect on how something we love can become an obsession, one strong enough to consume us and even change who we are. This film was born out of that tension: between ambition and the loss of self. Elisa, the protagonist, is a teenager determined to play Carmen, but in doing so, she begins to imitate her most destructive choices in order to bring her to life on stage. I wanted to explore how we sometimes confuse art with life, and how we often justify toxic relationships out of fear or habit. As a Mexican woman, I can’t ignore the context of gender-based violence we live in. This story is also a way to question that reality: why do we keep romanticizing violence in relationships?