In this delicate feature by Mimmo Calopresti, the tenuous friendship between two teenage boys from vastly different milieus mirrors the uneasy rapport between Northern and Southern Italy, between classes and generations. Luigi, a transplanted industrialist in Torino with a brooding teenage son, visits his native Calabria, and decides to help a troubled relative, Rosario, by bringing him to a home for youths back in Torino. Rosario's presence serves to unravel Luigi's bourgeois certainties, and the realization of his own hypocrisy is conveyed in a marvelously textured performance by Silvio Orlando. This intelligent, unsettling film is shot in muted colors by accomplished cinematographer Luca Bigazzi.

Italy, 2000. 84 min.

Preceded by BAOBAB. The lore of the magically alive baobob tree takes us on a mythic journey to the soul in this stunning film by Laurence Attali (Even the Wind, NYFF 1999). France/Senegal, 2000. 25 min.