Little Warriors
Director Daniele Cini
Countries Italy
Duration 61 min
Synopsis
Little Warriors tells the story of six months at Peter Pan Great Home in the heart of Trastevere in Rome. Peter Pan hosts the families of children with cancer being treated at the Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital in Rome. The association was founded fifteen years ago by two mothers, Gianna and Marisa, who had just lost their children. This brought them together and united them in the desire to transform their pain into support and help for other families who often, not being able to afford to pay for accommodation, slept in their cars outside the hospital. A welcoming home - completely restructured – with three different blocks and 33 living units that today host dozens of families: more than 600 since the year 2000. And all this without any public funding (apart from the new Regional Council that, as soon as it was elected at the end of 2013, allowed Peter Pan to continue its voluntary mission for another 5 years, after a threat of eviction), but with the help and solidarity of those who support it, around 200 volunteers, and the families themselves who live there and help to keep it going. Peter Pan Great Home manages to function not only as a family, but also as a company. Families come here from all over Italy, but also from abroad: like Khaled with his mum Saadya from Iraq, Areeg with her dad Ahmad from Libya, mum Grazia and dad Davide with Nicoletta and Angelica from Sardinia, mum Serena and Alice from Lombardy, mum Manuela and dad Marco with Marta from Abruzzo. Here, they get through their children’s illness, supported by the enthusiasm and energy of all those living in the Home. As Marisa says, “the enchanted atmosphere” of Peter Pan Great Home, “comes from a strange combination of life and death. The children living in this home have an illness that could potentially lead them to death: and so everyone is committed to doing as much as they can so that life can prevail.” Little Warriors is the story of Gianna and Marisa’s challenge which came true, but it is also testimony of a ‘normal’ reality, which is not normal at all, that represents a way of living through pain, even the most extreme, with openness and hope.
Little Warriors tells the story of six months at Peter Pan Great Home in the heart of Trastevere in Rome. Peter Pan hosts the families of children with cancer being treated at the Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital in Rome. The association was founded fifteen years ago by two mothers, Gianna and Marisa, who had just lost their children. This brought them together and united them in the desire to transform their pain into support and help for other families who often, not being able to afford to pay for accommodation, slept in their cars outside the hospital. A welcoming home - completely restructured – with three different blocks and 33 living units that today host dozens of families: more than 600 since the year 2000. And all this without any public funding (apart from the new Regional Council that, as soon as it was elected at the end of 2013, allowed Peter Pan to continue its voluntary mission for another 5 years, after a threat of eviction), but with the help and solidarity of those who support it, around 200 volunteers, and the families themselves who live there and help to keep it going. Peter Pan Great Home manages to function not only as a family, but also as a company. Families come here from all over Italy, but also from abroad: like Khaled with his mum Saadya from Iraq, Areeg with her dad Ahmad from Libya, mum Grazia and dad Davide with Nicoletta and Angelica from Sardinia, mum Serena and Alice from Lombardy, mum Manuela and dad Marco with Marta from Abruzzo. Here, they get through their children’s illness, supported by the enthusiasm and energy of all those living in the Home. As Marisa says, “the enchanted atmosphere” of Peter Pan Great Home, “comes from a strange combination of life and death. The children living in this home have an illness that could potentially lead them to death: and so everyone is committed to doing as much as they can so that life can prevail.” Little Warriors is the story of Gianna and Marisa’s challenge which came true, but it is also testimony of a ‘normal’ reality, which is not normal at all, that represents a way of living through pain, even the most extreme, with openness and hope.