A Year of School / Un Anno di Scuola

September 2007. From her home in Sweden, Fred moves to Trieste on the Adriatic Sea with her father, who has taken a new management job in the Northeastern Italian city. Feisty and curious, she enrolls in the local technical high school for her Senior Year, finding herself as the only girl in an all-male class. She quickly becomes the center of attention, especially for three friends: the fascinating and reserved Antero, the outgoing womanizer Pasini, and the sweet and protective Mitis. The three have been a unit for as long as they can remember. Fred yearns to be accepted into their circle and become one of them. But to truly belong, she is asked to sacrifice more and more.

Laura Samani’s second feature film is successful in many ways. First of all, it looks beautiful. It strikes us from the first minutes that it is made by someone in perfect command of their craft, with a camera always ideally placed to capture the important details of the sometimes crowded scenes of a school setting. These details, more often than not, are to be noticed on the faces of these volcanoes of hidden emotions that an 18 year old can be. And directing these young actors is another of Samani’s towering achievements here. An obviously sharp observer, she resorted to street casting to put together this beautiful, talented bunch. And indeed the young man playing Antero, Giacomo Covi, won an absolutely deserved acting award in Venice where the film premiered. And then, there’s the luminous, Kate Winslet-channelling Stella Wendwick, the young Swedish woman who learned Italian for the part. She is the centre of attention for these three young men of course, in a film that is fundamentally about desire, and for us, as we fall in love again by following her glance. Then, groggy with all these youthful emotions, we cannot wait to see Laura Samani’s next film. And the next.

This film is eligible for the Spirit of the Festival Award for Best Film award and Best Screenplay, Audentia Award and Lookout Award.

This screening is supported by Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Dublino.