Italian helmer Silverio Constanzo's gentle, understated coming-of-age drama In Memoria di Me (AKA In Memory of Myself, 2006) follows a life-changing period in the spiritual journey of twentysomething Andrea (
Christo Jivkov), a young man who undergoes a personal crisis and decides to withdraw from the world by entering a monastic order. As he begins his
novitiate, however (a period in which the senior monks observe his every doing, to deem him genuinely called to the monastic life) Andrea's illusions and preconceptions about becoming a monk begin to shatter. Instead of the silence, prayer and introversion that he initially anticipated, Andrea instead runs headfirst into suspicion, surveillance and distrust - as the fellow brethren seem almost eager to find a flaw in him, that will disqualify him from ordination. And gradually, Andrea begins to question if this world is even suited for him. Filippo Timi, Marco Baliani,
André Hennicke and Fausto Russo Alesi co-star. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide