Aprile

Aprile (1998) is an Italian-French comedy you can watch online on iFILM, written and directed by Nanni Moretti, who also plays himself. The film is set in April 1996, as Italy heads into parliamentary elections — left versus Berlusconi, again — and Moretti is simultaneously trying, and largely failing, to shoot a documentary about it.

The reason he can't focus is that his partner is about to have their first child. So the film drifts between polling booths and prenatal worry, political frustration and the specific anxiety of impending fatherhood, with Moretti narrating his own paralysis with dry, self-aware humor. It's a small, digressive, deeply personal piece — more essay than story — and one of his sharpest. Watch Aprile (1998) online on iFILM.