A dramatic and violent story about a group of kids in rural Italy during the late 1980s forms the latest offering from Francesco Calabrese, one of four winners of our Shorts on Sundays open call. Shot in an abandoned restaurant in rural, mountainside Turin, I Killer is the Italian director’s second short, following his first well-received horror film Lovely Monster. Calabrese has always been interested in darker narratives, so when he found the obscure short story Prove di Coraggio (Tests of Courage) by Italian writer Nicola Lombardi, he was inspired to turn it into a film, resulting in I Killer. Calabrese has worked on a wide range of moving-picture projects since 2003, including fashion films for Gucci and a commercial for Lamborghini—a breeze, he says, compared to the challenge of working so closely with child actors who play the young gang members: “They can’t focus for more than two hours, after that it’s just a mess.” More than anything the film reflects the desperate need to fit in that is felt among the young, something Calabrese believes everyone can relate to. “Kids can be mean and scary but at the same time most of them are gentle,” the director says. “I experienced something similar to this story—but I never risked my own life.”