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Olivia’s surprise at seeing two men kiss on a London street reveals the narrowness of the world she has left behind. The reaction is brief, yet it establishes the distance A Year in London wants its heroine to travel, from a sheltered fashion student in southern Italy to a woman capable of naming her own desire. The trouble is that Flaminia Graziadei’s film keeps announcing that transformation rather than giving it dramatic shape.
Played by Nina Pons, Olivia arrives at the London Academy of Couture carrying a family history in tailoring and an almost-engagement to the wealthy Paolo. Her new environment promises professional freedom, cultural discovery, and an escape from inherited expectations. It also brings her into the orbit of Nina, Melanie Liburd’s poised lecturer and designer. Their attraction appears almost instantly, before either character has revealed enough personality to explain it.
The premise brings sexuality, migration, class, and creative ambition into the same room. Yet the screenplay approaches these subjects through the machinery of a television soap. Misunderstandings multiply. Paolo creates trouble. Longing is outsourced to dream sequences. Every obstacle delays the romance without making it richer.
Desire by Plot Device
Olivia and Nina’s connection rests heavily on incidents that tell the audience how close they have become. Few scenes allow that closeness to emerge through conversation, shared humour, professional collaboration, or disagreement. The film substitutes looks, pauses, and imagined kisses for the difficult work of building intimacy.
The London mugging exposes this weakness with striking clarity. Graziadei stages the assault through slow motion and heightened sound, treating the violence as a rupture in both women’s lives. Hours later, Olivia and Nina lie in separate beds, smiling and squirming while thinking about each other. Trauma becomes a romantic accelerant. The psychological consequences vanish so the plot can move the pair closer together.
Their trip to a fashion convention in Rome offers another opportunity for emotional development. Nina invites Olivia under the language of mentorship and professional networking, then the two share champagne in a hotel room while desire hovers between them. Nina refuses to cross the line because Olivia is her student. That hesitation is necessary, since the teacher-student imbalance cannot be ignored, but the film treats the ethical problem mainly as a device for postponement.
Paolo’s interference serves the same purpose. He is less a person with whom Olivia has built a life than a handsome obstruction waiting in Italy. The earthquake and Olivia’s confrontation with her mother carry greater force because they connect her choices to family, place, and fear. For a few minutes, romance stops being an attractive fantasy and becomes a decision with consequences.
Lost in Translation
Pons plays Olivia with a defensive sharpness that may be intended as immaturity. Her discomfort in London, impatience with her flatmates, attachment to Paolo, and fascination with Nina could form a coherent portrait of someone testing several possible selves. The screenplay rarely connects these elements. Her development arrives in declarations and sudden shifts, leaving Pons to bridge emotional gaps that the scenes have barely acknowledged.
Liburd fares better through restraint. Nina’s professional composure cracks in small glances, especially when Olivia’s attention challenges the boundaries she is trying to maintain. Liburd can suggest loneliness while delivering routine dialogue about fashion events or community work, and her stillness gives Nina an authority missing from the script.
Yet the film repeatedly describes Nina as a daring designer without showing much evidence of that imagination. Her black-and-white wardrobe is elegant but generic, while classroom scenes and industry conversations reveal little about her artistic process. When she calls clothing armour, the line gestures toward identity, race, gender, and self-protection. The costumes never carry that idea any further.
Much of the English dialogue has the rigid quality of direct translation. Phrases about networking opportunities or introducing Olivia to children at a community centre sound functional rather than spoken. The actors struggle to find chemistry inside exchanges written to transfer information.
Olivia’s flatmates and Nina’s flamboyant assistant supply comic relief through broad types, then shift into emotional allies whenever the plot requires warmth. After the mugging, hostility dissolves with remarkable efficiency. London housing has never repaired a relationship so quickly.
Postcards and Promises
Graziadei photographs London, Rome, and southern Italy with an evident affection for their surfaces. Drone shots present the capital as a field of possibility, while Basilicata is rendered through warm landscapes and picturesque streets. These images offer visual pleasure, yet the locations often remain postcards. London rarely feels like a city reshaping Olivia’s habits, finances, language, or understanding of herself.
The rainbow-painted tunnel where Olivia and Nina run toward each other captures the film’s method. The setting is bright, declarative, and impossible to misread. Their embrace and profession of love complete the image with equal directness. Nothing is left unresolved, including emotions the preceding scenes have struggled to earn.
Fashion receives similar treatment. Olivia’s connection to her father’s tailoring gives the story a valuable link between inherited craft and contemporary identity. Nina’s interest in sustainability and inclusion suggests a professional world where design can carry social meaning. Yet the convention, academy, and industry contacts function mainly as attractive backdrops for the romance. Few garments, sketches, or classroom choices reveal what either woman believes fashion should do.
The film’s commitment to queer visibility remains sincere. It places an interracial relationship between women inside an accessible romantic drama and refuses to treat desire itself as punishment. Such representation deserves characters granted the full complexity of their circumstances. Olivia and Nina are offered beauty, longing, and symbolic spaces. What they lack is enough ordinary human detail to make their love feel lived rather than arranged.
The Anglo-Italian romantic drama A Year in London premiered theatrically in Italy on April 14, 2026, and is scheduled to debut in theaters across the United Kingdom on July 17, 2026. Viewers can look forward to seeing the film in select local cinemas upon its regional rollouts, with digital and streaming platform availability to be announced following its theatrical run. Set against the stylish backdrop of London’s eco-conscious fashion scene, the story follows a sheltered Italian fashion student who relocates to London for university and experiences a life-altering emotional connection with her brilliant, established mentor.
Full Credits
Title: A Year in London
Distributor: Emera Film, LonRom Film Production
Release date: April 14, 2026 (Italy), July 17, 2026 (United Kingdom)
Running time: 90 minutes
Director: Flaminia Graziadei
Writers: Flaminia Graziadei, Laura Jane Swain
Producers and Executive Producers: Flaminia Graziadei, Andrea Maffini, Valentina Quarantini, Marcoluca Cattaneo, Gioia Perpetua
Cast: Melanie Liburd, Nina Pons, Carlotta Morelli, Matteo Bassi, Sutara Gayle, Shaun Ramos, Clementina Aliberti, Karin Giegerich, Nando Irene
Director of Photography (Cinematographer): Francesco Ciccone
Editors: Giuliana Sarli
Composer: Riccardo Di Fiandra, Daniele Di Pentima, M_Side Collective
The Review
A Year in London
A Year in London treats queer visibility, creative ambition, and cultural displacement with evident sincerity, yet sincerity cannot substitute for dramatic conviction. Olivia and Nina’s attraction is declared long before it is felt, leaving fantasy sequences, professional hesitation, and Paolo’s interference to manufacture tension. Attractive images of London and southern Italy offer occasional pleasure, while Melanie Liburd’s restraint hints at a richer emotional film trapped beneath stiff dialogue and mechanical plotting. The representation matters. The romance rarely breathes.
PROS
- Attractive location photography
- Sincere queer representation
- Melanie Liburd’s controlled presence
- Promising fashion and identity themes
CONS
- Unconvincing central chemistry
- Stiff, translated-sounding dialogue
- Schematic romantic obstacles
- Underdeveloped fashion setting
- Uneven supporting characters
