It is the diary of a contemporary teacher, but more truly of his students: this is La nostra strada (2019), filmed by Pierfrancesco Li Donni in a middle school in Palermo's Zisa neighborhood.
Middle school—now officially called lower secondary school—concludes in the third year with a final exam. Once, that exam marked not just the end of a stage but the legal limit of compulsory education; beyond it, those without real prospects could begin to work. Today, with compulsory schooling extending further ahead, that final year should not be final at all. Students ought to think about what comes next, what path to take after passing the exam. Yet for many of them, the path is not metaphorical. It is the street itself—the place where they spend most of their carefree hours. It is also their escape route from the constraints of school.
Professor Mannara is patient and empathetic. He approaches the difficult task of educating young people who dismiss learning outright—not with resignation, but with a kind of creative determination. As he engages his students, though, Mannara is contending with something larger: a social world where dropping out seems inevitable, where no credible alternatives exist. We see no crime or violence in this struggling neighborhood, no absent or tyrannical families. The teenagers consent to being filmed in their daily lives, and their natural immaturity might trick us into thinking they grasp the weight of their choices. Capable adults do exist here—guides who could help. But their influence is severely limited by a context that offers no incentive, no cultural value, for investing in the future. A world that cares only about a present that hardens into certainty.
Some students will heed the professor's counsel. Others will not. But for a time, they will all share the same street, the same quarter, until youth ends—and with it, every opportunity they might still have seized.
Presented as a work in progress in the Alice nella Città section of Rome's most recent Film Festival, La nostra strada won the Italian competition at the Biografilm Festival. Now it faces the challenge of finding distribution in an era when nearly all cinemas and cultural venues remain shuttered.