A Year of School
A Film by Laura Samani
Italy / France — 2025 — 102 min — Comedy Drama With Stella Wendick, Giacomo Covi, Pietro Giustolisi, Samuel Volturno Screenplay: Laura Samani, Elisa Dondi — Based on the novel by Giani Stuparich — Production: Nefertiti Film, Rai Cinema — Co-production: Tomsa Films, Arte France Cinéma — French Distribution: Arizona Distribution
Synopsis
September 2007, Trieste. Fred, a seventeen-year-old Swedish girl, has just moved to the city with her father. She enrols at the local technical high school — and discovers she is the only girl in an entirely male class. Three inseparable friends — Antero, Pasini, and Mitis — are immediately drawn to her, each in his own way. Over the course of one school year, the four of them learn something about desire, loyalty, and what it costs to belong.
About the Film
Laura Samani set her adaptation of Giani Stuparich’s 1910 novel in 2007 — the year she herself was a teenager in Trieste, in the very school where the film was shot. The result is a film steeped in personal memory: the particular texture of friendships before smartphones, the unspoken rules of a classroom, the way a single year can feel like an entire life. None of the four lead actors had previous screen experience — they were found in bars, school corridors and Stockholm audition rooms, and their performances carry the unguarded quality of people who haven’t yet learned to pretend.
Laura Samani
Born in Trieste in 1989, Laura Samani studied philosophy before training in directing at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome. Her graduation short La santa che dorme was selected for the Cinéfondation at Cannes 2016. Her debut feature Piccolo Corpo, presented at the Cannes Critics’ Week in 2021, won over forty awards worldwide, including Best First Film at the David di Donatello Awards and the FIPRESCI Discovery Prize at the European Film Awards. A Year of School is her second feature.
Awards & Selections
- Best Actor (Giacomo Covi) — Venice Film Festival 2025, Orizzonti
- Official Selection — FIJA 2026 — Feature Films, Paris