Flicks at the Chicks: The Special Need
2nd August 5pm £9
The Special Need
Enea is 29. He has blue eyes and loves trucks, especially the ones that are driving on ice. There is only one thing that Enea loves more than trucks. And this is: girls. He hasn’t found the right one yet. Still he has never stopped looking for her. One more thing about Enea: he is autistic.
When he is not working at his dad’s factory, Enea spends his free time with his friend Carlo or walking around town aimlessly, sometimes he gets in troubles for giving too much attention to women. One day, after taking a photo of a girl on the bus, he is pushed to the ground by her boyfriend. Carla, Enea’s therapist, convinces his mom that the time has come for the man to cope with his sexual desires. Carla and Enea retreat in a location by the sea where Enea is given the basics of sexual education. Meanwhile Alex, a friend of both Carlo and Enea, gets involved and starts with Carlo a research aimed at finding a way for Enea to have sex in a safe and legal environment.
Alex soon realises how difficult it is to find a solution like this in a country like Italy, where prostitution is illegal and most of the people with learning difficulties are considered like eternal children. In the meanwhile, polemics start spreading in Enea’s association. Why should a person with learning disability be introduced to sex? Is it admissible to take an autistic guy to see a prostitute? How will it be possible to control his desires once he’s been initiated? When Alex research seems to be stuck in a dead end, he is tipped off about a brothel in Austria where prostitutes work with disabled people. The journey is planned and in a couple of days the three friends leave on Alex’s old Volkswagen van.
From Bolzano to Linz, Zurich and Hamburg, they embark upon a journey that will take them far beyond what they initially imagined. More people will join the mission and a series of unexpected events will divert the van from the initial destination towards new paths.
What started as an expedition aimed at having sex soon becomes a journey into Enea’s most intimate feelings and a way for the three friends to explore their own conception of love, friendship and freedom.
The Special Need is an award-winning film that has played at over a dozen film festivals including South by Southwest, Locarno and Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival. This is the London premiere of the film.