Ninna nanna (Lullaby)
2021 · 1m · Italy
Directed by Filippo Ronca
Tones: contemplative, tender
Before taking big actions to improve the world, the best thing we can do is defend the little moments that make us happy and human.
Picked by Zoe
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A one-minute meditation on domestic contentment as resistance—which should be saccharine but isn't, because Ronca refuses to sentimentalize the small moments; instead he lets them breathe like they're the only thing that matters, which is exactly the subversive move most filmmakers would botch.
Ronca situates himself in a lineage of Italian neorealist tenderness, but compressed into sixty seconds with the formal discipline of a haiku—the restraint is the craft, and the craft *is* the argument.
The singular choice here is silence: Ronca lets the mundane actions (a child eating, a parent watching) exist without score or voiceover, trusting that one unadorned moment of attention becomes radical when everything else in cinema is screaming—it's economy as philosophy.