“I have gone through almost everything let’s say, so I know how it is. Then, I mean, you have to think about it the first time indeed. It can all go smoothly, so if everything went well the first time you say ‘I can do the second and the third.’ But then, even if they catch you, you always come return to doing the same things.”

Bologna 2016. Ayoub is capable in the kitchen, he learns new things and looks to the future; Simone talks about complicated relationships while showing his drawings; Faki thinks about the future and how to build it; in the background Kamal’s voice raps about his life in verse. They are parts of the new lives in jail of the detainees in Pratello’s juvenile detention center.

The first time tells about their existence, previously un-told details about their crimes, the downward spiral that led them to the first crime, to imprisonment, to the process of recovery that sees them swinging between hard paths and embrasure, from which a deep immaturity emerges.

Adolescents, doubly suspended between detention and awaiting the age of adulthood. Co-starring with them, the new reference points of their lives: the prison staff, the social operators.