Films for Cadets

“Carmela’s diary” tells the story of a 15-year-old girl who lives on the outskirts of Naples and is forced to work for her family’s shopping center. Caged in a life that only promises her an uncertain future. Carmela perceives her adolescence as captivity, forced to live as a prisoner by her mother, Maria, who forces her to sell drugs along with her older brother, Ciro. War breaks out amongst the gangs in the neighborhood and Carmela is forced to stay indoors, with the windows well sealed, and give up everything, even one of the things she loves the most, going to school. Powerless in the face of the circumstances that ferry her to an uncertain destiny, made of fear, refusal, co-living surrounded by crime, Carmela attempts to escape confessing everything to her best friend, her diary. The difficult reality, in which the little protagonist lives, slowly compromises her purity and her innocence, almost like an unavoidable consequence of the rotten and deviated context in which she grows. Ultimately making her not only an accomplice but also a slave to that reality, the only one who she knows, resigning herself to it.

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Kristjan and the other kids from the neighborhood are best friends and spend their summer days with games and adventures in an abandoned old factory. After being chased away from the grounds by Elmar, the grumpy security guard, an accident casts a dark shadow over the group. Kristjan has to face the hardest decision of his young life: save a life or stick with his friends?

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The Space Among Us is coming of age drama, set in a rural, picturesque town Kostanjevica na Krki. The story revolves around 14 year old Canadian Tobi, who comes to Slovenia on summer holidays with his mother Kristina, who is about to have an important art exhibition in her hometown. Tobi is not excited to spend a summer away from his father and his friends. The situation gets even worse when a local gang starts to bully him because of his skin color. The only positive thing around is a free spirited girl named Tjaša, who leads Tobi to an unusual encounter with retired, blind astronomer Herman. While waiting for his father to join them in Slovenia, Tobi starts spending time with Herman, who teaches him about the laws of Space, which can be applied to our everyday life here on Earth. The star observatory also represents a shelter for Tobi, where he runs to in order to escape the news about his parents’ marriage problems. As it turns out, even Kristina’s art exhibition was pre-planned and visiting her hometown was just an excuse to escape her current life in Canada. The roller coaster of intense emotions and dynamic events lead Tobi and Kristina to confront their fears and to discover what the Universe holds for them.

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Tomek lives alone with his mother, because his father, Alek, left for the USA with money. Unexpectedly, the man shows up at home with a bunch of presents, but does not explain the reason for his return. Everyone seems happy, but there is something disturbing in the air. As time goes on, Alek is struggling with a strong alcohol addiction, which gradually destroys Tomek’s family and his childhood. The boy has to grow up very quickly and face a reality unwritten by any child.

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Mattia is a teenager, intolerant of the rules. He is one of those who are routinely thrown out of class, one that some adults would just call “like everyone else”, one who “is intelligent but does not study”. Mattia is angry. He is angry with his parents and perhaps with the whole world. Mattia is what one would commonly call a “bully”. He is attending high school and in his mind the nightmare of failing is more threatening than the nightmare of Covid-19, which exploded in Italy and which will shortly be recognized as the most invasive pandemic of all time. In the anxious silence of the quarantine, Mattia spends his days locked in his room, between a video lesson and a bad joke with his companions while in Distance Learning. In this situation, however, Mattia discovers love.

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