Fondazione Fare Cinema

Giulia is constantly torn between the need to feel at home and be loved and a wild desire for freedom. One day she finds herself homeless and begins, in her own crazy way, to seek shelter and her own place in the world. Between an illusory desire for motherhood and ways to make ends meet, she spends the hottest days of a torrid Roman summer surrounded by elusive characters with empty lives, yet pure and wonderful like her. In a limbo made up of nothing (and everything), Giulia understands that it is up to her to decide how to live, or not to live, her own life.

A retired teacher is sitting at a table outside a bar; it’s a beautiful sunny day. The waiter brings him breakfast. Soon after a young man arrives and the teacher invites him to sit, he was waiting for him. He is dark skinned. He comes from Mali. Well dressed, serene, ready for the “game” that the teacher is playing. It’s a puzzle game where one wins when completing a crossword. But there is a variable that makes this game impossible: guessing the solutions before the question is made. Nevertheless, the young man finishes the game. Or almost…

The film, a nostalgic fantasy documentary, depicts in six episodes a family story in Bobbio between 1999 and 2008. We discover the 5 years-old Elena being brought up by her aunts (Marco Bellocchio's sisters) because her mother Sara is trying to succeed as an actress in Milan. Her uncle Giorgio has a difficult relationship with his sister and judges her for not taking care of her daughter. But as soon as Sara can afford it, she offers to take Elena with her, leaving the village and her aunts, perhaps for ever - while Giorgio, up to his eyeballs in debt, takes refuge in Bobbio. His sister will help him and sell a house.

A man wanders the streets of a small provincial town, obsessed by the idea of meddling in the lives of others.

It’s Halloween. Camilla stands outside her school. She looks around to find her dad, but her mother Paola is the one waiting for her instead. She takes the little girl to the bakery ad tells her to get whatever she wants: today is a special day. Back home, Paola dresses her up as a zombie. The long-awaited “trick or treat” moment is coming. A hood with two holes for the eyes covers her face. Camilla walks through the streets of her town hand in hand with her mother. However, the woman has a different plan.

Emma is a child and adolescent psychotherapist, a sixty-year-old woman with a gentle smile and a kind gaze. Every day, she welcomes children and teenagers into her office, where they express their discomfort and their "difficulty in living."