Ali Blue Eyes

Winter in Ostia, on the coast outside Rome. Sixteen-year-old Nader and his friend Stefano steal a scooter at eight in the morning, rob a shop, and are at school by nine. Nader comes from an Egyptian family but was born in Rome. Because his girlfriend is Italian his parents object, and the boy leaves home. The film follows one week of his life. The title comes from Pasolini's 1962 poem Prophecy, in which the poet imagined a multi-ethnic future and the blue-eyed Alìs of it. Claudio Giovannesi cast from the street; he knew Nader Sarhan from a documentary he had made earlier, and here the boy plays someone close to his own life. The film declares nobody a victim and nobody a criminal. It won the Special Jury Prize at the Rome Film Festival.