Parents in Progress (2019)

The lovely and talented Anna Foglietta (Perfect Strangers, The American) plays Simona; a single mother in her early ‘40s who is wholly devoted to her son, Filippo. To get over her insecurities as a parent and make her son happy on his eighth birthday, she decides to throw him a birthday party in their small flat and invite over his school friends and their parents. For Simona, this birthday is about to pose quite the surprising dilemma between allowing her son to embrace his true self and a mother’s fierce desire to protect her child from their potentially cruel surroundings. This is the last conundrum she was expecting to have to face on a day that is already rife with anxiety. Director Laura Chiossone turns their tiny flat into a melting pot and whilst the children play in the living room, the adults in the kitchen talk about parenthood, love, and different world views.