It doesn’t surprise anyone that when Pietro (Nanni Moretti) loses his wife to a tragic accident, he loses himself in grief. What does surprise them, though, is that his sadness takes the form of separation anxiety from his 10-year-old daughter, Claudia (Blu Yoshimi), for whom he waits all day outside her school. An executive at a large media company undergoing a merger, the distraught and conflicted Pietro escapes the office for the comfort of a park bench outside of an elementary school, and as weeks turn into months, he begins to get a reputation as a neighborhood fixture. Characters come and go from his perch— his actor brother, his crazy sister-in-law, a mysterious woman he saved from drowning at a beach before his wife’s accident—but he remains steadfast in his doting grief, until finally, he’s able to let go. Keep your eyes open in the end for a cameo by an infamous Hollywood figure who also knows the pain of losing a spouse.
Quiet Chaos
8:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 20; also on Thursday, April 22 at 6:30 p.m. Both showings at Avalon Theatre.