“I had begun to discover the world as a Slovenian, and now I couldn’t bear being forced to become Italian.” – Boris Pahor (1913–2022)
Julka is an eight-year-old girl from the Slovenian community who has two friends, Danilo and Marko, with whom she is inseparable. Their lives change drastically when the fascist regime imposes Italian as the sole language and bans the use of local languages and dialects, thus ushering in a period of oppression and persecution. One day, a teacher—a staunch supporter of forced Italianization—hears Julka speaking Slovenian in class and decides to punish her violently.
By focusing on linguistic imposition as a tool of domination, this short film transcends its historical context and offers a reflection on a highly topical issue. Today, just as then, nationalist regimes, by denying a language, deny the very existence of local communities, their history, and their cultural distinctiveness, thereby creating the conditions for ethnic cleansing.
