Waves crash against the shoreline, where 46-year-old Smaragda (Niovi Charalambous) sits staring out to sea with a blank countenance. There’s plenty life and work stuff weighing the former children’s television presenter down. Her mother has recently passed away, and she’s took to looking after Bella, her mother’s guide dog. Single and with no plans to be a mother, her hopes of a new show are dashed. Without a social media following, Smaragda has no drawing power with the public. She ironically ends up taking a job as a children’s activities coordinator at a local hotel. Meanwhile, in her spare time she creates social media videos with an environmental message.

Smaragda – I Got Thick Skin and I Can’t Jump is not a naturally entertaining film. Its protagonist is a resilient individual, who puts one foot in front of the other. She sees what each new day brings and tries to find reasons for hope. Director Emilios Avraam is on hand to help fill the story with some humour. After all, the film is about how hope and despair, happiness and sadness are always in parallel with one another. Smaragda emphasises these juxtaposing dynamics. Her face will beam with a smile, or she will reveal her quirky personality. She’s an affable and affectionate person, but she can also be blunt when she stands her ground. We can see from the look in her eyes and in the physicality of actress Niovi Charalambous’s performance that she feels the burden of life. Her eyes also betray the vulnerability lurking in her soul. The resilient Smaragda, however, expresses the common truth that confidence, self-esteem and self-belief are partly performance – sometimes we are able to find the strength to play the part.

Charalambous creates a layered character, who is as quietly fierce as she is withdrawn and insecure. The striking emotional and psychological aspect of the character that Charalambous and Avraam draw out is a specific type of pain. Smaragda is a principled character who stands for something – the videos she creates and posts to social media are driven by her compassion for animals and the environment. There’s no doubt she is comfortable with her choice to not be a mother and draws strength and validation from being an outsider. And yet, she gives a peek into the pain that she and other outsiders often carry with them.

The film could be called The Enigma of Smaragda because, despite the character’s layers, we’re left with the sense that we’ve never been allowed to penetrate her outer shell. This leaves Smaragda with an air of mystery. It’s an intriguing contradiction that offers an understanding of Avraam’s intention to share with us a character who is a prism for our own self-reflection. The film starts out being about Smaragda but the focus gradually shifts. Avraam and Charalambous create a space for us to enter the film and collaboratively shape our experience. The question asked is how we understand the character and what that says about us? Smaragda and Avraam, however, don’t make it easy.

For much of the film, Avraam’s interest in themes and ideas is passive. Meanwhile, Smaragda is trying to find meaning and connection, but the film is often pushing its audience away. Here a question is asked: Is it the character or the audience’s place to find meaning, or is it both?

This feeling of distance and being pushed away is important for the film to feel genuine and to be present with Smaragda’s spirit. She challenges any threat to her autonomy and in her interview for the children’s activities coordinator job, when the manager asks about her family and why she doesn’t want kids, she says, “It’s an odd question. It would have been more poignant to ask someone why people choose to have kids rather than the opposite.” Then in a later scene we see her fiercely defend her independence when the hotel manager tells her there have been complaints about her activities on social media, that reflect poorly on the hotel’s image. She replies with gentle yet firm defiance, “Sorry, but what I do outside of here is my business. It’s not yours. You can’t tell me what to do.”

Smaragda is both a political and feminist film. The character reminds us of strength through vulnerability, and politically, it looks in a subtle and nuanced way of how easily politicised our lives and the broader world is. In fact, Avraam seems to suggest that human beings are political creatures, or at least Smaragda is.

The final impression Smaragda leaves us with is how her resilient spirit makes it impossible to not see a glimmer of hope penetrating her despair or worries. There are inevitably going to be those that see themselves in Smaragda. This will not only offer an empathetic connection, but more importantly, they will see themselves represented onscreen. Smaragda – I Got Thick Skin and I Can’t Jump should be appreciated for this.

Smaragda – I Got Thick Skin and I Can’t Jump just premiered in the First Feature Competition of the 28th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.