The Last Time We Were Children

The Last Time We Were Children (L'ultima volta che siamo stati bambini, 2023) is an Italian-French war drama you can watch online on iFILM. Directed by Claudio Bisio, it follows four childhood friends in Rome during the summer of 1943 — when real bombs made their games of war look very small.

Italo, Cosimo, Vanda and Riccardo grew up side by side, unbothered by the differences that were tearing Europe apart: one the son of a Fascist official, one the son of a prisoner, one an orphan raised by nuns, one from a Jewish family. On October 16, German soldiers take Riccardo along with over a thousand people from the Ghetto. The three remaining friends decide to go after him — alone, on foot, across a country at war.

Their journey through disbanded soldiers, deserters and half-starved villages turns into a first, brutal lesson in what grown-ups have made of the world. The film works precisely because it keeps the children's perspective intact — loyalty here is absolute and uncomplicated, which makes everything around them hit harder. Stream The Last Time We Were Children (2023) online on iFILM.