Babylicious

Highway at night. Three boys race in a Mini Cooper, cracking jokes and making rest stops, while trying to dodge speed cameras on the road from Rome to just outside Florence. Alessandro can't even eat a sandwich because he needs to drop a few grams by the next morning. He is about to participate in an important national boxing tournament at the age of 31, just as he has decided to quit. He has recently become the regional champion in a discipline that, at the amateur level, is light-years away from the spectacular and heroic representation seen in movies. When he fights, he likes to be spectacular; his handling of anxiety is an intimate search that takes him to a dark corner as soon as the match begins. It's an ecstasy where everything around him disappears, the same inner world that allowed him to overcome the tough events that mark his past. His life is narrated through his calm voice; he already has two children and balances such a demanding sport with his profession as an electrician. At the age of 10, he fled with his younger siblings from an abusive mother, only to end up separated in foster families where things were even worse. Wearing a mask of silence and tranquility at school, no one notices that he has become the servant of a family of tormentors. Every act of rebellion was met with violence, and for years he believed he was beating himself up at night. Alessandro has emerged from this hell and has carefully crafted his present, creating a normalcy that he never took for granted. Now, the challenges are changing, as his children grow up, they are beginning to ask increasingly burdensome questions.