More than Iliad! The journey of Enea, the protagonist of the documentary by Carlo Zoratti The Special Need, that at the Locarno Film Festival received a standing ovation from the audience, it is fraught with dangers and kilometers. All emotional and daily, as befits a road movie among the bravest ever designed and manufactured in Italy.
Oh yes! Because Enea is not a fictional character but a real person. Lives in Udine and is affected by autism. He knew Carlo when he was a volunteer at a center for disabled people. They became friends, then they lost each other. Years later they meet again and Carlo, who has always imagined Enea as an eternal child, he realizes that it is infact an adult and, as such everybody, has developed instincts and desires that are common to all the males of his age. In short: he wants “the girlfriend.”
From this argument, which in Italy is shamefully a taboo, become the idea of telling the adventure of Enea in search of physical contact, which is not only the discovery of new sensations, but also of the self. Two years to find funds: 250,000 €. A thousand doors slammed in the face and then the miracle: the commissioning editor of a German TV channel embracing the project. Without having seen anything, because a documentary like this one doesn’t have a trailer: there is only one chance to make it happen, when it picks up the camera and you go.
The journey is long: they are Enea, Carlo and Alex, a neighbor of Enea. On a Volkswagen van, as one of the terrorists in Back to the Future. In Italy you can not do anything, not even looking for a “hooker”. Because she will be processed to circumvention of an incapable, Charles and Alex for pimping.
And so on in Austria, where the houses of pleasure are legal, some even specialize in disabled people. Then to Berlin, where the Institute for the self-determination of people with disabilities to trebel Enea knows Ida. She was a nurse and now she is a “sexual assistant”.
There will be no full report: Enea is to decide, and first he wants love. There is, however, the discovery of huge hugs to bare skin.
Then home, to resume a normal life even more than before: work, acting classes, and now the strength to ask a girl to go out.
A documentary perfect for the Oscar, if we had sent, which consolidates the role of Friuli Venezia Giulia among the most active regions of Italy cinematically speaking. A sweet movie, human, respectful, hopeful, since I have to show those who think that some people have less interest in or right to normal others. Especially to those who think they can decide what is the normal. Really?! Who is normal cast the first stone.