Winner of Best First Film at the 2018 Nastri d’Argento Awards, Boys Cry is a pulse-pounding crime thriller set on the outskirts of Rome. There, teenage best friends Mirko and Manolo spend their days in school and their nights delivering pizza. The clueless teenagers dream of a better life filled with money and women. Not that they have much chance getting there on their meagre delivery boy wages. Commiserating about their prospects one night while driving the streets of Rome, the boys are involved in a fateful hit-and-run. Word of the accident earns the pair an introduction and a first assignment with the local Mafia. But while Manolo’s opportunistic father encourages his reluctant son to claim the glory and the rewards for himself, it’s Mirko who takes to the work with ease, testing the boys’ unshakeable bond. Premiering to critical acclaim at the Berlin International Film Festival’s Panorama section, a space reserved for films that showcase artistic vision and new cinematic directions, Boys Cry masterfully captures the unease, shifting allegiances, moral questioning and overwhelming sense of inescapability of life in Rome’s underworld.
