Last Monday 14 October Leonardo Calcina, just 15 years old, took his own life in the province of Senigallia, where he lived with his mother. He did it with the service pistol that his father, a traffic policeman, kept in his safe; the boy deactivated the surveillance camera, opened the wardrobe where the gun was found, left the house where his father lived with his partner and never returned. Both his father and mother said that Leonardo was bullied at school.

In 2012 the suicide of Andrea Spezzacatena was the first case to be directly linked to bullying and in particular to cyberbullying. Teresa Manes, his mother, after her son’s death entered his Facebook profile with the credentials that the boy himself had given her shortly before his death. It was only then that Manes discovered that some of Andrea’s classmates had created a group in which they made fun of him called “The boy in the pink trousers”. That pair of trousers had been a gift that Teresa had given to Andrea and that he often wore even at school. They have become a symbol of the fight against bullying: “I made many mistakes with Andrea – said Teresa Manes – giving him that pair of trousers was not he was among those.”

The case of Andrea Spezzacatena is still remembered not only thanks to the commitment of his mother – awarded the title of Knight of the Republic in 2022 for her prevention activity against cyberbullying – but also for that particular circumstance, the Facebook group and the pink trousers , which have remained imprinted in the collective memory. And it is precisely the name of that group that gives the title to the film that reconstructs Andrea’s story.

Roberto Proia, screenwriter and producer of the film, says he became interested in the story after reading Teresa Manes’ book. Proia said he met the woman after buying the rights to the film to understand, together with her, how to tell her son’s story. From that moment on Manes read the story, the screenplay and was involved in every step of the making of the film, up to the final cut created specifically to be premiered at the Rome Film Festival. Margherita Ferri, director of the film, said she had received precise instructions from Manes: “make a vital film, a film full of life, like Andrea was”.

A teen movie about American-style bullying

From here, from the mother’s will, came the desire to tell the story of the boy with the pink trousers as if it were a teen comedy. Lights, colours, atmospheres are closely reminiscent Heartstoppers – the Netflix series that tells the coming-of-age story of some LGBTQI+ boys and girls – and also the choice to set half of the film in a sort of college contributes to leaving the viewer with the feeling of watching an American teen movie. The film follows Andrea (Samuele Carrino) from middle school to high school; the decisive meeting for him is the one with Christian (Andrea Arru), a handsome and cursed boy and with his best friend Sara (Sara Ciocca), who seems to want to help him integrate. In the middle there is the separation of the parents (played by Claudia Pandolfi and Corrado Fortuna) preceded by months of arguments which greatly affected Andrea.

If we weren’t all aware of the tragic ending, it would almost seem like we were watching a film series for teenagers all made up of captivating music, pastel colors and with the inevitable happy ending. Director Margherita Ferri said that a nice atmosphere had actually been created on the set: the cast and crew were so happy to tell this story that it seemed almost incredible to everyone that what they were telling wouldn’t be a story with a happy ending. .

An awareness raising operation for a very young audience

Arisa, who wrote the song that serves as the film’s soundtrack for the film, spoke of The Boy with the Pink Pants as an awareness-raising operation and, in fact, there is no more precise definition to describe this film, conceived and created to speak to a very young audience.

When he comes out

The film will arrive in theaters by Eagle Pictures on November 7th but on November 4th, 5th and 6th there will be morning screenings reserved for schools. Roberto Proia said that Eagle Pictures contacted a multiplex in Senigallia to organize a special screening of the film there. When this happens, the community and above all the city schools will decide. The cast and crew said they were available to meet the public and the schools not to judge but to mend things. For Leonardo, for Andrea and for the many victims of hate that politics pretends not to see.

Rating: 7