Le mie ragazze di carta (2023)

Veneto, late 1970s. Primo, who got a job at the post office through a personal recommendation, moves from the countryside to Treviso with his wife Anna and their teenage son Tiberio, who enrolls in a bookkeeping program. Tiberio befriends Giacomo, a classmate whose mother has died and whose father owns a cinema that is turned into an “adult” venue to weather the crisis, as more and more people begin to prefer television to the movie theater. Although the nature of the business is looked down on, many customers come to the screenings, bringing in excellent profits. Giacomo lets Tiberio in through a side door on the roof of the building, and Tiberio (beginning to grow familiar with the sexual desires typical of adolescence) becomes infatuated with a seductive little actress, Milly d’Italia. From then on, he obsessively collects every newspaper and magazine clipping in which she appears. At his parents’ urging, Tiberio joins a rugby team coached by the parish priest, Don Marcello. Obsessed with Milly, however, he cannot concentrate properly on either sports or his studies, to the point that he fails to notice his classmate Marika’s obvious crush on him. During his delivery rounds, Primo meets Claudio, a cross-dresser with whom he forms a friendship that, under the pretext of working overtime, leads him to spend less and less time with his family and play chess with Claudio instead. Primo’s kindness, for its part, contrasts with Anna’s superficial nature; in Treviso, she is obsessed with keeping up with the lifestyle of the local social scene. In particular, she wants to buy a color television, so she starts working from home as a seamstress. Giacomo leaves Treviso when his father moves the business to Padua after the authorities seize the cinema. Claudio develops increasingly strong feelings for Primo, which, he says, make him feel “clean.” The two part when Claudio leaves for Casablanca, where he intends to undergo gender-reassignment surgery, with Primo’s help as well. The chessboard thus passes to Primo, who teaches Anna how to play. Convinced that meeting Milly in person is the only way to exorcise his infatuation with her, Tiberio takes a bus to Rome under the pretext of attending a parish retreat. He meets her there, but cannot find the courage to speak to her, merely returning a packet of cigarettes she had left behind. She responds to his kindness with a smile. After the Archdiocese grants him permission to move, Don Marcello also finally leaves Treviso to return to Bolivia, where, as people had rumored, he has a secret wife and a child. Marika finally finds the courage to confess her love for Tiberio. Together, they enter through the rooftop door into the old cinema that belonged to Giacomo’s father, and Tiberio finally experiences “real” love.