Adam Leon is an old-school New York City filmmaker, capturing (as Sidney Lumet and Spike Lee did before him) the vibrancy of the city and the shifting moods of its boroughs, neighborhoods and suburbs in fleet-footed indies like “Gimme the Loot” and “Tramps.” He writes and directs the dreamlike story of Alina (Vanessa Kirby, always compelling), a young author drifting through Manhattan in the midst of a bout of amnesia or, perhaps, a psychotic break. There’s not much more to the plot than that, which is as it should be; “Italian Studies” is less about narrative movement than observation and anthropology, as Alina falls in with a group of teenagers (some played by nonprofessional actors, all believable) and, lacking a perspective of her own, begins to see the city through their eyes.