Special event screenings
After moving audiences across Italy with screenings in more than 840 theaters, over 62,000 viewers, and a box office gross of €392,000*, School of Life is now beginning its international journey with its first-ever screenings in the United States.
Bringing the documentary that tells our story beyond Italy’s borders marks both a unique opportunity and an important first step in sharing the stories and lived realities of our students with an even wider audience. At the same time, it helps advance Still I Rise’s mission: making free, world-class education accessible to children everywhere.
Special event screenings will take place on May 28 at the Italian Cultural Institute of San Francisco and on June 1 at the Italian Cultural Institute of New York. Nicolò Govoni will attend both events, meeting audiences and taking part in Q&A sessions following the screenings.
A breakout documentary
Released in June 2025, School of Life quickly became one of the most talked-about documentaries in Italy, successfully holding its ground against major Hollywood releases such as Superman and Jurassic World: Rebirth.
Directed by Giuseppe Marco Albano and produced by Groenlandia and Rai Cinema, the film follows Nicolò Govoni and the mission of Still I Rise: changing the world through education. Through the voices and faces of children living in some of the world’s most overlooked places, the documentary shows how a revolutionary educational model can become a real chance for a different future.
Honest, intimate, and deeply powerful, the film takes viewers inside a mission built on one essential belief: restoring hope where it once seemed lost.
The documentary received widespread media coverage across Italy, with more than 140 articles and features published during its release period. In Italy, since March 17, 2026, the film has also been available to stream for free on RaiPlay.
School matinée screenings across Italy
Reaching younger generations and inspiring meaningful change for the future lies at the heart of Still I Rise’s mission. For this reason, we encouraged children and teenagers across Italy to experience School of Life through a series of special school matinée screenings organized in collaboration with Freak Factory and Circuito Cinema Scuole, involving classrooms in more than 30 Italian cities.
The project officially launched with a nationwide event screening on November 14, 2025, when 150 movie theaters across Italy screened the documentary simultaneously for a total of 16,753 primary and secondary school students.Following the screening, students and teachers took part in a moving live conversation with Nicolò Govoni, who joined audiences from Cinema Adriano in Rome while simultaneously connecting with the other 149 theaters nationwide.
The initiative exceeded every expectation in terms of participation and audience engagement, demonstrating once again that every screening of School of Life is far more than a film event: it is another step toward a world where free, high-quality education is no longer a privilege, but a right guaranteed to all.
*Still I Rise did not receive any share of the film’s box office revenue.
