Written and directed by Emiliano Mancuso

Photography by Emiliano Mancuso

Curated by Raffaella Milazzo

Casa Felix is a group home for minors with family and criminal issues located in the eastern outskirts of Rome.

Valerio is in remanded custody, serving nine months for misdemeanors. He doesn’t seem to want much from life except to have fun and not think about the future. He comes from a broken home: he lives with his mother but he idolizes his father, who is currently in prison.

Giuseppe, who was taken from his parents, has been living in the group home for almost two years after having spent six years in other foster care facilities. He has a twin sister and two younger brothers scattered in other institutions and foster homes. He’s taking a course as a cook’s assistant and dreams about turning eighteen so he can live with his father again and put his divided family back together.

And then there’s Emad, an Egyptian boy who arrived in Sicily by boat without knowing where he was exactly, and without a family or any relatives in Italy. He has to pay off a debt to the human traffickers who brought him over by doing forced illegal work.

Emiliano Mancuso spent a year with them. An account of a right that has been denied; the right to be an adolescent.