What will I be when I grow up? It’s the question that all adolescents ask themselves sooner or later in regard to work and life. It is also the question at the center of this documentary by Patrik Soergel, who for a year followed five young people in the Locarno area: Samuel, Joel, Melanie, Giulia and Toussaint.
Their stories have a common denominator: they all attend the pre-apprenticeship school in Gordola. A school for kids 15 and 16 who have been exempted from compulsory schooling and haven’t yet chosen a trade or found a job as apprentice. The students are given lessons combined with job training. They approach the working world through internships while at school they study subjects concerned above all with identity, self-esteem and self-analysis. During the 10-month school term the director followed the evolution of the kids inside and outside the walls of the school, capturing their doubts and fears but also their satisfactions and gains.
A direct look at today’s adolescents in our region, where choices and important decisions are never taken for granted.
