(Rome Luigi Noera with the kind collaboration of Francesca Salmeri- Photos are published courtesy of the Fondazione Cinema per Roma)

TODAY STARTS TOGETHER WITH THE ROME FESTIVAL THE 17th ED. OF ALICE IN THE CITY

In the independent side section Alice in the Cities as has already happened in previous editions there is a certain effervescence, but this year also a powerful presence that risks overshadowing the Festival. First for the ALICE COMPETITION the film Lola by the Belgian Laurent Micheli, accompanied in the section INTERNATIONAL SCENERY from the US film Bull by Annie Silverstein and by Maternal Maura Delpero.

Lola, by Laurent Micheli, France, Belgium, 2019, duration 87', with Mya Bollaers, Benoit Magimel, The Deceukeliers, Sami Outalbali, Jeremy Zagba.

Laurent Micheli's film is an interesting reinterpretation of the classic father-daughter roadmovie to rediscover their relationship. The protagonist, Lola, she finds herself forced to embark on a journey with her own father with whom she hasn't spoken for a long time. Lola's father didn't accept his son's choice, Lionel, to change sex and hardly accepts the company of his daughter on the journey that will lead him to fulfill the wishes of Lola's deceased mother, that one's ashes are scattered in the North Sea, place of his childhood. Lola's fury against her father won't stop her from accompanying her mother on her last trip. The most interesting aspect in the development of the characters is the firmness they show in wanting to carry on their convictions, beyond any claim of intellectual and political correctness.

The two main characters agree to go on a journey together, not to share positions on the choices they have failed to accept about each other. An interesting and often overlooked point of view by virtue of more apparently acceptable ideologies. Perhaps the strong point of the film lies in this detail, which is well balanced not only in the development of the plot but also and above all in its technical aspects. Sometimes the greatness of a story lies in the ability to tell it in a way that shows aspects of it that otherwise would not have been so evident. Lola succeeds by conquering the public and leaving them, it seems deliberately, puzzled.

Maternal, maura delpero, Italy, Argentina, 2019, 91′

Maternal is an interesting Argentinian film, enriched by typical elements of Italian cinema. A film about women, on motherhood and the spontaneity of love that leaves no particular space for a parallel analysis of the male world, represented by roles of little importance.

Of the characters that are presented to us we know very little, we are not told the stories of the two girls, the ways that led them to the religious center where they met Sister Paola. The most prominent character, on which the film focuses to bring to light the transformation of a woman who discovers and accepts her being a woman through the acceptance of the most spontaneous feeling of all: maternal love. In abandoning the veil Sister Paola encounters sexuality and tenderness attracting the contempt of women, represented by the sisters, which have not undergone the same transformation.

The link with a religion that bases its very nature on the figure of the mother and the acceptance of maternal love remains strong and constant. The world that Maura Delpero tells is a twofold world, made of excessive shame, of ancient and severe prohibitions and sexy women, ornaments and riches that are not always shared and understood.

The end result is that of an intelligent film, characterized by a precise direction, which invites us to an original and perhaps necessary reflection.

Bull, by Annie Silverstein United States, 2019, 101’, con Rob Morgan e Amber Havard

If there's one thing Leon taught us (1994) is that a couple that works in the cinema is the one represented by the innocent girl and the "hard worker" man. If in the very famous French film, Natalie Portman discovers the greatness and humanity that can be hidden in a hit man, Bull can be read as an interesting reversal of positions.

Surely the young protagonist - Amber Havard - does not tell us the story of a bad girl, he is not – as no child can be – responsible for the difficult situation he is experiencing. The mother is in prison, the grandmother is old and sick, takes care of his sister but slips into the mistakes that teenagers make, seeking affection and distraction instead finds the loss of itself.

It is the encounter with Abe's character - Rob Morgan - that gives her a new vision of reality. A vision that includes the discovery of passion, of the commitment, of spending one's time in a concrete way, useful, adrenaline, a way that allows it to grow. A reality in which Kris can stop feeling and being a lonely child to discover that she is a little girl who wants to become a bullfighter when she grows up.

The dramatic atmosphere of the story is well balanced and broken by moments of great adrenaline and sweetness, typical mode of American cinema that gains in breadth and power between the image of a raging bull and that of Kris's younger sister who cries because she is afraid of being alone.

The absence of banality in a story that could have drowned in it is important. The girl doesn't have a family but she doesn't meet a new mom or a new dad. Meet a person who teaches her to be her family herself, which puts her in front of the possibility of really changing her own emotions, not just your daily activities.

An important message enclosed in Bull, a message that refers to the importance of passion, of empowerment and discovery.

Francesca Salmeri