Sunday, 22 October at 18:45
Who are today’s children? What do they think and what do they manage to grasp of the adult world?
To answer these questions, the director Sophie Chiarello decides to follow the pupils of a primary class in a school immersed in a multi-ethnic neighborhood. For five years with her camera, she lowers her gaze to child height to capture their point of view of the world.
What is love? Who are the migrants? What are the differences between male and female? What does it mean to become an adult? But, above all, who is Santa Claus?
These are just some of the universal questions which children laugh, argue and confront each other about for the five years of primary school in the Italian system. Each time they form a circle where together they relate and listen to each other and discover something new, about themselves as well. In a nutshell: they grow.
The Circle is not a documentary about children, but with children, a documentary that talks about them, but also about us, the adults; a portrait of today’s world in which tomorrow’s is reflected. Disarming and genuine as only children know how to be.
Sophie Chiarello is an Italian-French director. She grew up in France, where she graduated in screenwriting at the FEMIS school of cinema in Paris. She started her career in Italy as a first assistant director. She wrote and directed three short films, all presented and awarded by prestigious film festivals. In 2011 she wrote and directed her first documentary film: Ritals, Domani Me Ne Vado. The film won the special Jury prize at Annecy 2012. Il Cerchio is her second feature documentary film.
Director in attendance
