Ivan Sivec

It takes three mistakes to be swallowed up and spat out by the fashion industry.
You trust the wrong people. You think you know everything there is to know about life. You take drugs.

Maja started off as a regular 17-year-old high-school kid, fighting her inner insecurities while dreaming to become an actress like Marilyn Monroe.

At a party her boyfriend Klemen introduces her to a renowned modelling agent. He sees a special X Factor hidden insight her. And a great business opportunity for himself...

Only a few weeks after Maja's life is turned upside down. After a successful jump-start in Slovenia her charm and talent land her a modelling contract in the trendy and exciting Milan. Over night she packs her bags and leaves her old life behind.

The glamorous fashion capital doesn’t seem very glamorous at first. Maja lives in a wrecked house along with several other teenage models, she has no control over her income, food or jobs and is constantly harassed by men ‘in their bold years’. She doesn’t know who to trust and feels lost.

Just as she is about to give up and return home she gets spotted by a famous designer and chosen to be his muse. That changes everything. She abruptly becomes one of the most desired models in Milan. Jobs start rolling in one after another. She made it!

However, the more her career thrives she’s less able to see the danger lurking around fashion industry. Maja is about to perform at her most important fashion show so far when she nearly breaks down due to exhaustion. Her roommate Svetlana offers her cocaine to feel fresh again. Maja swears to herself this was the first and last time she had to help herself out with drugs.

But she cannot keep the promise. Maja realizes she won’t be able to tackle on the long working hours, exhausting photo shoots, stressful fashion shows and constant travelling without drugs. She starts falling in a downward spiral of drug addiction and is torn between the tempting dream of becoming a world famous model and the horrendous thought of destroying her body beyond the point of no salvation.

At a yacht party Maja gets drugged, violently raped by multiple men and tossed over the board. She’s found the next day. Barely alive. She paid a very high price to realize that even though she loves the attractive fashion world, she loves herself even more.

Anorexic, raped, beaten up, exhausted, only a shade of her former self, in a gray space between life and death, she realises the fashion industry sucked everything out of her – except one thing – the will to live.

Maja wants to be her old self again. Ironically, it means losing the only thing that made her special. She has to give up on her hidden X Factor.… (mehr)