Zelia Zbogar

The Winning Generation is a documentary filmed over 12 years, following Shahen Harutyunyan from a 14-year-old activist to an emerging political leader. Carrying the legacy of his father and grandfather in Armenia's long struggle for independence, he transforms their tradition of resistance into a new democratic vision. As Armenia navigates political instability and strong Russian influence, Shahen seeks to forge his own path while redefining what a new generation's fight for freedom could look like.

Sunday night. Alex is an ultras, his team has just lost a match and he is going home empty-headed. In the absence of his parents, he lives with his grandmother and sells Rivotril tablets to make some money. On a night that’s struggling to take off, Alex goes down to the basement and into a cellar where a bunch of people are gathered. A rap battle is in progress. Nemy is a girl with refined bars, who dances confidently and sinuously. She notices Alex and seeks him out. Together they venture into the night, driving in a stolen car. Two solitudes that recognise each other. Their bodies brush against each other in what seems to be the beginning of a story.

A nocturnal journey inside the abandoned spaces of the former Collegno mental hospital. Through the writings from within - the voices of the letters, diaries and testimonies of the internees - the labyrinthine and crumbling rooms come back to life and evoke the painful past of the psychiatric hospital. They tell of the electroshocks and tortures on adults and children carried out by Doctor Giorgio Coda, the "electrician" from Collegno. They tell of the official trial against him for torture and of the proletarian trial that Coda suffered at the hands of a Prima Linea group, led by one of his "patients". Only at dawn, with the story of the closure of the mental hospitals, will we see the light again.

Within a week, the lives of three teenagers intertwine around the burning of a Roma camp. Alessandra is raped, Thomas is accused and Alex has to choose between the truth and bigger interests at play.

On her last day at the diner, Sara prepares to leave the city. Denis watches her, trying to hold on to what they both fear losing. In a crystallised, suspended landscape, their goodbye reveals the depth of their bond and the poignant intensity of severance.