In the desert of Southern California, lies the unfinished city of California City. A predesigned city, originally intended to mirror LA in size and population, but it was never completed. Lashay T. Warren, left behind his turbulent past in LA to make a fresh start within this grid of thousands of crumbling streets.
Lashay willfully makes his way through the vast city on foot, he takes shortcuts across the empty lots and trespasses through the golf course. He reports about his encounters with his new and unfamiliar home in a diary, just like the early pioneers did, when they entered a foreign desert country.
'If I keep things in motion, everything will be alright, everything in life will be straighter', writes Lashay in his diary. His walks become less purposeful, merely guided by curiosity, the stimuli of the landscape and the rhythm of his footsteps. VICTORIA is a film evoking a wandering, in which Lashay, like a contemporary pioneer, draws up his own path and leaves behind his mark.
2020 Berlinale (Germany) - Forum Section, Prix Caligari