Raffaella Giordano

In 1914, with Italy on the cusp of joining World War I, a group of foreign artists establishes a commune on the rural island of Capri, catching the attention of young Lucia, a local illiterate shepherdess who soon falls under their spell.

Naples. Present day. Giovanna, a combative 60-year-old social worker on the frontline of the daily war against pervasive criminality, is confronted, like a modern Antigone, with a moral dilemma that threatens to destroy her work and her life. Giovanna runs an after-school centre that takes care of underprivileged children; a grassroots alternative to the mafia dominance of the city. But one day, young Maria, wife of a ruthless Camorra criminal on the run, and her two children take refuge at the centre, and ask Giovanna for protection.

In 19th-century Italy, Giacomo Leopardi channels his debilitating illness and isolation into poetry.