Genre: Drama

Language: Italian with English Subtitles

Director: Kim Rossi Stewart

Cast: Kim Rossi Stewart, Barbora Bobulova & Alessandro Morace

Released: 2006

Duration: 104 Minutes

Rating: M contains offensive language and sexual references

Distribution: Palace Films, 254

In Kim Rossi Stewart's profound and touching directorial debut, ‘Along the ridge’, two young children and their father form a strangely united and courageous family after being abandoned by the most important woman in their lives, their mother and wife. Through all the family's bungling imperfections, good intentions, inconsolable loneliness and fury, the unspoken love between father and children keeps their bond strong.

The story is seen through the eyes of eleven-year-old Tommy, with his sister Viola, at times a merciless bully, and his father Renato (Rossi Stewart), a seemingly harsh and unjust disciplinarian. For the three an almost routine peace has settled over their motherless home until Stefania (a heartrending Bobulova) suddenly reappears just as recklessly as she had departed, upsetting the precarious equilibrium again.

‘Along the ridge’ (not the literal translation which is grounded in a line of dialogue that invokes a soccer term) won the CICAE Award at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival where it screened in the prestigious Directors' Fortnight section and won Best Debut Feature (Rossi Stewart) and Best Debut Role (Morace) at the Italian Golden Globes 2006 plus received six 2006 David di Donatello nominations.

“Rossi Stuart’s film does not offer any easy answers, but his exploration of the subject does prove to be one of the more remarkable directing debuts in recent years.” Boyd van Hoeij, European-films.net