Vermiglio

Just as too many cooks can ruin the stew, too many story threads can ruin a movie, and thats very much the case with writer-director Maura Delperos fourth feature film. This Golden Globe nominee for Best International Film follows the lives of a family in a village in the Italian Alps in 1944. The family patriarch and town schoolteacher, Cesare (Tommaso Regno), along with his wife and army of eight children shelter a pair of Italian army deserters, hiding them from Axis Forces in search of the runaways. While in seclusion, one of the soldiers, Pietro (Giuseppe Di Domenico), falls in love with Cesares eldest daughter, Lucia (Martina Scrinzi), eventually marrying her and fathering a child. However, when the war ends and Pietro travels to Sici...

With the war now heading firmly in the favour of the allies, Italian soldiers are deserting in droves and one of them, Sicilian "Pietro" (Giuseppe De Domenico) arrives, wounded, in the eponymous Italian village where they know what he has done. Opinion is divided on what to do next, given many have lost their sons in the war or are still ignorant of their whereabouts, but he has the support of the influential schoolmaster "Graziadei" (Tommaso Ragno). It's his daughter "Lucia" (Martina Scrinzi) to whom he takes a bit of a shine, and she readily reciprocates. They marry and all seems rosy until the war actually ends and he has to return home to his mother. This is when the wheel rather comes off this idyllic scenario as his unanswered letters...