Gioia (2025) – Italian

Gioia is a french literature teacher who has never known love, except for the suffocating kind from her parents, with whom she still lives. Among the students at her school is Alessio, who uses his body as a means to earn money and help his mother, a cashier in a supermarket. A forbidden, fragile, and inexplicably necessary bond grows between Alessio and Gioia. But Alessio’s desire for social and personal redemption becomes a silent poison that keeps him from fully surrendering to Gioia’s disarming sweetness. And so, he destroys everything and erases the only person who has ever loved him.