Late 1999, Italian countryside. A birthday party of a friend Enrico. A simple-sounding situation gradually reveals much more. The Birthday Party is a film about childhood, about fascination with strange houses, alcoholic fathers, grandmothers who disappear into the woods and mothers who have to scream to be heard. Director Francesco Sossai takes us back to his own adolescence with this short feature, faithfully capturing how memories become distorted over time. In doing so, the film highlights seemingly unimportant details, filters ordinary places through emotions and makes present a jarringly unsettling atmosphere that defies the laws of logic. Does it really matter what exactly happened or how we remember it? Or is it how we felt about it that is most important?
directed by: Francesco Sossai
year: 2023
duration: 17 min
country: Germany, France, Italy