Padrenostro

Synopsis

Best Actor, Venice Film Festival

Rome, 1976. Timid and eager-to-please 10-year-old Valerio witnesses the attempted assassination of his father Alfonso by a terrorist commando. Fear, anxiety, and vulnerability overwhelm the family, as they struggle to regain a sense of security and restore normalcy to their lives. When Christian, a slightly older and bolder rebellious boy appears almost out of nowhere and befriends Valerio, his outlook starts to shift. Their meeting will change his life forever, as the two seem to exist in a chimerical world outside of everyday reality. Loosely based on the director’s own childhood experience, filmmaker Claudio Noce deploys magical realist elements to both wondrous and nightmarish effect, creating an intimate and stirring rendering of trauma and its enduring aftermath.

“Both Valerio and Christian are intriguing characters, the former’s vulnerability well-matched to the latter’s compelling mysteriousness” –Variety