Forever Young: inspired by the director´s own experiences, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi’s drama follows a group of young actors as they undergo the selection process and their first year at a prestigious theater school. Young and immensely emotional, they have to deal with everything from drugs, AIDS, relationships, in addition to the training and staging of a play. Interestingly, there are story threads that only glimpses are shown, a reminder that the world continued to live even if the focus was on a few characters. The acting is generally intense, as the characters are, to varying degrees, emotionally vulnerable: Nadia Tereszkiewicz plays the protagonist, a rich kid who nevertheless throws herself full-on into everything; Sofiane Bennacer plays a troubled fellow student with fine energy; Louis Garrel, as the real-life imperious director of the school, is also quite good. The film recreates a credible mid-1980s, with competent work by production designer Emmanuelle Duplay and costume designer Caroline de Vivaise, all nicely shot by cinematographer Julien Poupard (the choice of keeping the images grainy reinforces the sense of period). Very interesting and varied music selection.