Feels like teen spirit. Essere adolescenti nel cinema del reale

Over the last twenty years, due to the increasing attention that Italian cinema has devoted to adolescence, teenagers have become key figures onscreen. Directors and filmmakers are mainly interested in narrating their daily routine, their interpersonal relations, as well as their troubled inner world. The authors belonging to the so-called cinema del reale (‘cinema of reality’) are also deeply involved in dealing with adolescence issues, by focusing on personal experiences and stories with remarkable sense of understanding. This paper aims to analyse the role and image of adolescents portrayed in the films of four Italian directors, with the objective to examine the narrative practices and the representation patterns underlying the contemporary cinema of reality.