Set within a shadowy, labyrinthine cityscape, the music video follows a lone hunter navigating hostile terrain, both physical and psychological, in a journey defined less by vengeance and more by reclamation. At its core, it’s about a woman, portrayed by PIA, reclaiming her power from someone who once held it over her. The man at the top of the castle represents a figure she gave her power to, someone who trapped her in a cycle she couldn’t escape.
For Indian-origin international EDM artist PIA, known for building cinematic narrative worlds around her music, the gothic aesthetic functions as an emotional language that allows vulnerability, power, discomfort, and beauty to coexist without resolution being rushed. “Zukacoa is about the reclamation of power and the self,” she avers. “Strength doesn’t come from avoiding darker inner worlds, but from facing them without flinching and choosing direction over distraction.” That philosophy extends beyond the emotional into the physical. By performing all of her own stunts, including sword and gun choreography, PIA sought to remove any symbolic distance between performer and character. In a similar spirit of immersion, the illustration that opens the music film was also created by PIA herself the night before the shoot. “It wasn’t about proving toughness,” she adds. “It was about integrity. If I wanted the audience to believe in this transformation, I had to embody it… every fall, every movement.”
Speaking about drawing from the emotionally rich gothic worlds of Tim Burton and Guillermo del Toro, director Joe Sill whose work spans global brands including Apple, NASA, Disney, Nike, and Warner Bros. Games, shares, “For us, Zukacoa isn’t about borrowing from a lineage or paying homage. It’s about speaking fluently in a language we’ve carried with us for a long time. What resonated most with us is their ability to hold beauty and terror in the same frame, and to let colour, light, and texture communicate feelings that words often cannot.
Designed to feel like an exciting cinematic video game cut-scene, Zukacoa unfolds as a psychological ascent rather than a descent, where monsters function less as spectacle and more as manifestations of inner resistance and fear. Influenced by games such as Bloodborne and Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, the film treats action as a progression through inner conflict rather than a series of victories.
Ultimately, Zukacoa is less concerned with explaining its heroine’s past than with capturing her refusal to be defined by it. Framed as an act of reclamation, especially for women, but resonant for anyone who has felt diminished or made to doubt their own agency, the music video film meets its protagonist in motion: determined, wounded, but never passive. Power here is not portrayed as something taken from another, but as something reclaimed through presence, resolve, and self-trust. By the time her journey reaches its end, the transformation feels earned not through victory alone, but through the quiet, uncompromising act of standing her ground and moving forward anyway.
Zukacoa is now streaming on all major platforms, with the music video live on YouTube.
Song Link: https://youtu.be/IN3JKfBkDw4
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