In the midst of the corona pandemic, right after the end of the first Lockdown of 2020, three Italian filmmakers set off for their country with cameras in hand. Pietro Marcello, Francesco Munzi and Alice Rohrwacher, a trio that, in addition to feature films, is also involved in documentaries, managed to complete a documentary that captures the spirit of the times. Following the example of the legendary Pasolini, who did something similar in the early sixties, from whose film we occasionally see clips, they decided to do a series of interviews with young residents of Italy and hear what their dreams, hopes and fears are in these gloomy pandemic times.
Marcello, Munzi and Rohrwacher scattered from the north to the south of Italy with some retro cameras in their hands and tried to find out how their young compatriots, pupils and students see the future. They talked to young people from cities and villages, from the slums of big cities, students of prestigious universities, and given the time of the pandemic, it is not surprising that a feeling of fear and anxiety is almost predominant. These are the generations that grew up with social networks and Facebooks, Instagrams and similar shit, something that has always been with them, and the younger ones, especially, probably don’t know what life was like before that.
Indeed “Futura” which was premiered in the director’s evening of the festival in Cannes leaves a lot to think about because although we can often hear everyone swearing by the youth and their mouths are full of stories about the youth, they feel as if nothing is being asked of them. No one listens to them, their opinion is irrelevant, and we will remember that during the corona crisis, it was the young people who were the culprits on duty because they did not want to sit at home and were declared grandfather and grandmother murderers. They ask these young people of different social structures, levels of education, economic backgrounds and questions about what constitutes success for them and what money means to them. What would they like to be when they grow up (of course, most young men from poorer areas want to be football players, and girls want to be beauticians), and regardless of their background and the circumstances in which they live, practically everyone has in common anxiety, fear, insecurity, uncertainty, almost depression from what awaits them later in life. “Futura” brilliantly shows how we live in a cynical world and how apathy, hopelessness and the feeling that nothing can change have crept in among people.