Axelotil - Pablo

On the small island where she lives and works, Arianna is preparing to ring in the new year and ring out the old. But that night might not only be the end of the year, it might also be the end of her relationship with Nanni, a beekeeper from the city. The looming separation remains a mystery for the woman: she doesn’t understand the reasons for it and fruitless hours have been spent talking it over with evasive Nanni, who seems to consider their relationship an obstacle to his freedom. But when faced with another woman’s pain, Arianna manages to find the strength within herself to carry on.

An Italian documentary about No Tav movement.

Matteo is an ordinary young man muddling through odd jobs, friendships, nights at the bar, and struggles with money, identity, and his parents. When his girlfriend, Stefania, becomes pregnant, they mutually decide not to keep the baby and to part ways. Three years later, Matteo discovers that the child was actually born and is named Davide. His relationship with his son, a new job, and an attempt to build a family lead Matteo to discover that he is a different person than the one he had always believed himself to be.

A group of young people arrives at a community for people with disabilities in the center of Rome to perform their civil service. For them, it marks the beginning of a completely new life and an opportunity to engage with an unfamiliar world.

The ostensibly simple story of a sympathetic veteran teacher giving Italian lessons to a weekly class of diverse immigrants is given infinitely more depth and complexity by the manner in which director Daniele Gaglianone renders his story. Blurring the lines between fact and fiction, truth and artifice, and between documentary and drama, Gaglianone has created a film within a film. You see the apparent artifice of Gaglianone’s crew using professionals, including the noted film actor Valerio Mastandrea as the teacher, interlinked with ‘real’ immigrant protagonists, studying the language to improve their chances of employment and of gaining a permanent residence permit. Thus in the course of the lessons there is simultaneously the painful and upsetting relation of the students’ personal stories but also humour, as they interact and share their humanity, bridging cultural differences, united in their striving to make a better life for themselves. (Source: LFF programme)

A professor has quit his job at the university to expiate his son's eyes disease. Giovanni's blindness drags Angelo into a never ending crisis. Finally, from Angelo's socially committed past, dark shadows spread out; he comes face to face with himself and gets back to his role as a father.