An eighteen-year-old boy is released from an institute for minors with no family support, and for the first time tastes the bittersweet flavor of freedom; an imprisoned mother longs to go back and start all over again. These are the characters taken from the real world and transferred into a film that is first of all a shadowing of human beings, of their hopes and little acts of cowardice. But it is also the story of a time of waiting, of a soul going around in circles, a coming of age in a desolate and oppressive, marginal context that becomes a character in its own right.
Acting
Lattanzi's physicality—shoulders always braced for impact.
Cinematography
Naples outskirts as suffocating character, never picturesque.
Direction
Albertini's documentary background bleeds into every frame.
Director
Dario Albertini
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Shot in Castel Volturno, a real 'land of fires' toxic dumping zone—the landscape's poison is literal.
Andrea Lattanzi was 28 playing 18; his actual maturity makes Manuel's arrested development hit harder.
IT
