The Black Sheep

In Competition at THE VENICE FILM FESTIVAL.

Nicola is a young boy who was born in the country during the Sixties, with his mother sent to an asylum, his father and his two brothers being shepherds and his grandma rearing chicken and taking care of him. At school he's banished to the last desk, he's absent-minded, he doesn't do his homework and the teacher calls him "the black sheep". But he loves Marinella, the most beautiful girl of his class and when he's not lost in her eyes, Nicola tells about aliens and shows his bravery by eating spiders alive.A crime committed by his brothers, falls on the dangerous kid; Nicola becomes a troublesome witness and his reckless family sends him to the asylum where his mother died and where nobody will listen to him. A guest, not a patient, in a place that feeds him and puts him up. Following a second tragic event of which the responsibility falls on him again and after having suffered brutal treatments, Nicola develops another identity by inventing a friend, a technician, that keeps him company.Then Nicola meets Marinella, the beloved of his childhood, at the supermarket where he often goes accompanied by the old nun that has known him since then. In a sweet love atmosphere, Nicola pluck up courage to declare his love still there after 35 years, while the other one, ignored by the surrounding world, comments with risqué talks.The joy of finding her again and the deep sorrow after her clear refusal, give Nicola the possibility of recovering himself, getting rid of the imaginary friend.