30. Film Festival della Lessinia
Bosco Chiesanuova (Italia)
23 August - 1 September 2024

Luca is fourteen years old and his hands already marked by mountain life, consisting of nature, open air, care for animals, milking and a passion for hunting. He seems exist placidly, yet happily, in his environment, until the family convinces him to enrol in a hotel school as renowned as it is severe. At the institute - housed in a majestic nineteenth-century building - the days go by regulated by iron discipline, aimed at training personnel capable of entering high-ranking work. Luca, shy and intelligent, although not too inclined to study, struggles to find his dimension in a cosmos diametrically opposed to that of the mountains, regulated by the slow rhythms of nature. The director, following his extraordinary young protagonist with empathy, searches in this reality for a possible story of modern education, baring the meshes of a society in which the ancient rites of passage have not disappeared, only changed.

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  Davide Maldi

  Davide Maldi was born in Rome in 1983 and graduated from the Scuola Romana dei Fumetti. Engaged as a theatre director, he first worked in film as an assistant director, before making his own short films. He shot the documentaries Sul fiume (2011) and Frastuono (2014) and then made his feature film debut with L’apprendistato, presented at the Locarno Film Festival.