The film cycle "A Child in the Cities" aims to explore, through a cinematic journey, the complexity and innocence of childhood amidst an urban landscape, sometimes hostile, sometimes curious and surprising. In this selection, we want you to immerse yourselves in stories of discovery, maturation, and connection of children on their way to momentary maturity through the films "Alice in the Cities”, an iconic work by Wim Wenders that takes us on a journey of self-discovery through Germany, and "C'mon C'mon", the latest work by Mike Mills, which invites us to reflect on family ties and the beauty of simple moments when we are children.

Many of Wim Wenders' films are driven by a search, almost always without a name. In "Alice in the Cities", a 9-year-old girl and a man, Philip, who suddenly finds himself responsible for taking care of her, search for Alice's grandmother's house. This search for a home can be a metaphor for the search for the home we have within ourselves, our identity. Philip had doubts about it when he searched for another identity, on the other side of the Atlantic.

Alice, like all children, is always on a journey, that is, in discovery, because almost everything is still new to her. It is her way of looking - open, without interpreting, without "geographizing" - that makes Philip see things differently. So, what seemed marginal, irrelevant, can leap into the center. He stops photographing - that vain search to fix reality. His new camera is Alice's eyes.

"Alice in the Cities" is a drift with open eyes, which teaches us to embrace deviations. Then, these deviations can be new beginnings, that is, reconfigurations of our perspectives on reality. Only children, in their permanent state of beginning, can remind us of that.

In the charming "C'mon C'mon" by Mike Mills, Johnny (Phoenix) is a journalist and audio producer who asks numerous children what they think about the future and their communities. Some are afraid, some are hopeful, some want the world to get along, others just want the world to see them as they are. Viewers inevitably find themselves in a reflective environment, but like most adults, Johnny is just trying to get through the day: juggling various tasks, interrupting crises before they worsen, or just trying to help another person in need, until he meets a curious child with his own set of questions.

Johnny helps his semi-estranged sister Viv when she needs to go to Northern California to help her mentally ill husband, Paul, seek treatment. A shared past of pain and words they couldn't take back separated the two siblings after their mother's death. Now, Viv asks Johnny to take care of her precocious son, Jesse, in Los Angeles. Placed in the role of full-time caregiver to his nephew, Johnny gains a new appreciation of the world, of how difficult it is to be a parent, and of the many moments of joy and frustration that come with it.

Ultimately, the true driving narratives of our stories are the people in our lives: those we love, those we argue with, those we rebel against, those we disappoint, and those we turn to for comfort. Children and their discoveries seemed to us the perfect theme to, for the first time in this cycle, feature two films: one inspired by the other, one facing the other so that we, in our post-film conversations, can elaborate on relationships and fabulations that will help us 'continue to grow' with more wisdom.

Come share all of this with us.

Come!