Tackling the traducing of tertiary education funding via a caper comedy pays off in Sydney Sibilia’s debut feature I CAN QUIT WHENEVER I WANT TO.

State funding cuts combined with faculty politics finds genius neurobiologist researcher, Pietro, ousted from his university position and plunged into the petri dish of unemployment.

Discovering the lucrative market for designer drugs and a loophole in the law regarding the manufacture and distribution of recreational pharmaceuticals, Pietro gets together a band of similarly dismissed academics to create a cartel.

Comprising chemists, anthropologists, economists, and experts in semiotics, the diverse disciplines generate a brainstorming, gang busting enterprise of high ingenuity.

The quality of the chemistry and the text book marketing bring instant success with financial riches beyond any of the former academics wildest dreams. But such success breeds excess, and the operation looks like imploding.

Their success also brings the nasty attention of established drug dealers, killer criminal kingpins, unhappy that their turf is being invaded by these egghead upstarts. Party pooping police are also displeased at these new players flaunting their felony free status.

On the domestic front, Pietro faces the quandary of his partner’s profession as a drug rehabilitation case worker, and the friction that will cause if discovered.

A wry, robust, and raucous romp with something to say about the state of play in government’s role of continuing higher education, I CAN QUIT WHENEVER I WANT TO is Breaking Bad out of Ocean’s Eleven with an added Roman élan.

I CAN QUIT WHENEVER I WANT is screening as part of this year’s Lavazza Italian Film Festival running between September 18 – October 12 spread liberally across three Palace cinemas – Norton Street, Leichardt, Verona, Paddington, and the Chauvel, Paddington.