It is correct to name “The Italian” a socially-psychological drama. And it is also correct to call it simply a life story. Certainly this film is about children and it’s for children, but at the same time it appeals more to the adults’ audience.

“Arbat Prestizh” # 5 February 2005

     Viewers feel with the characters tremulously. That’s why the film is humane. A viewer will drop a tear and reflect on what to do with the children who are thrown at the margins of life.

“Moskovskaja Sreda” # 2 January 2005

     The authors of “The Italian” are quite romantic and they are sure that people guided by their belief and hope eventually make their dreams come true, even the most unbelievable ones. Six-year-old Vanya Solncev needs somebody to give his love to, the love which is not yet damaged by life. So Vanya chose his own, faraway and unknown mother. And he will never decline from his decision.

“Cultura” # 8 February 2005

     The script of this touching, but not over-sentimental film is based on a real story. Little Vanya behaves not like a boy, but like a man. He is trying to preserve dignity in any circumstances.

Gzt.ru

     “The Italian” is not a traditional story about the adventures of poor orphans, it is a dynamical and quite tough film about the problems of the society in which left children are referred to as potential criminals.

“Saint-Petersburg Vedomosti”, # 7 February 2005

Andrei Kravchuk’s “The Italian” is taking part in Kinderfilmfest, a childern’s film event within the festival.

“The Italian” is sentimental story, described by its directors as social drama, which leads the audience into the gloomy world of one of Russia’s poverty-stricken provincial orphanages. To make it all the more convincing, the young residents of an orphanage in the suburban town of Vyborg, near St.Petersburg, star in many roles in the film.
Six-year-old Vanya Solntsev, played by St.Petersburg schoolboy Kolya Spiridonov, is more fortunate than his fellow residents in the orphanage because an Italian couple has decided to adopt him. But “the Italian, as everyone calls him, does not express much enthusiasm about starting a new life in a warm Meditarrenean climate. Instead, he looks for his real mother. Vanya’s mother, a medical nurse who put the child into an orphanage immediately after his birth, only appears in the film for an instant. “These days it has almost become routine to see children in orphanages when their parent are actually alive”, Kravchuk said. “There are many reasons for that. But what we would like to explore in our film is the moral aspect of this problem, the issue of parental responsibility for the future of the children”.