18 Presents

An Italian drama. Elisa is pregnant and knows her illness has advanced. She understands she will not see her daughter grow up, and makes a list: a present prepared for the child for every birthday, up to eighteen. Years pass. Anna grows up and receives a parcel from her mother each year. For her the parcels are not a bond but a weight; she resents a woman she never knew intervening in her life. The narrative breaks on her eighteenth birthday. Anna leaves the house and has an accident; afterwards she finds herself in the months before her own birth, when her mother was pregnant. The second half is built on two women getting to know each other, one of them not knowing who the other is. What the film is interested in is not loss but how what is left behind gets carried: the father has kept this tradition for eighteen years, and the distance between him and his daughter comes from there. The source is real: Elisa Girotto prepared birthday presents for her daughter before her death, and the story was much discussed in Italy. Elisa's husband, Alessio Vicenzotto, contributed to the screenplay. Vittoria Puccini plays Elisa, Benedetta Porcaroli plays Anna and Edoardo Leo plays the father. Francesco Amato directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes emotional family drama. Who it is not for: anyone who wants the time shift explained; the film sets it as a rule and does not dwell on it.