Directed by Emanuele Crialese • Drama • With Penélope Cruz, Luana Giuliani • 2023 • 97 minutes
Clara (Penélope Cruz) and her emotionally distant husband Felice (Vincenzo Amato) relocate to Rome to raise a family. Even though the paint is fresh, and the appliances are new, the crushing expectations around marriage, desire, and gender in the early 1970s remain as traditional as ever. Their children Andrew (played by newcomer Luana Giuliani), Gino, and Diana are likewise poised at a precipice, on the verge of adolescence, with nothing but their imaginations to defuse family tensions. The eldest child, Andrew (nicknamed Adri by his parents), yearns for another life – an outsized, vibrantly-realized vision of a world where he gets to live as the boy he knows himself to be. Without an accepted vocabulary for talking about his transgender identity, Andrew tells adults that he’s an alien from another galaxy. An effortlessly moving film about growing up, fitting in, and breaking the mold, L’immensita is as freewheeling and creative as its central characters, mixing genres and staging musical numbers out of thin air.
Up Next in Growing Up
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Dangerous Games
Directed by Ann Shin • Documentary • 2025 • 79 minutes
After Katie is assaulted by a predator in Roblox—a virtual world with 78 million daily users—she teams up with Alex and Janae to expose what’s really happening in the metaverse. Their investigation uncovers disturbing truths: explicit games,...
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Anything You Want to Be
Directed by Liane Brandon • Documentary • 1971 • 8 minutes
Anything You Want To Be was one of the earliest and most popular films of the Women's Movement. Made in 1971, this groundbreaking film about a teenager's humorous collision with gender role stereotypes was one of the first to explore the...
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The Return - Family Separation
Directed by Jeremy S. Levine • Documentary • 2025 • 25 minutes
"The Return - Family Separation" portrays the challenges faced by 12-year-old Geovanny and his family. After being apprehended at the U.S. border and separated from his father for six months due to the U.S. family separation policy, ...
