Pupella Maggio

This carnivalesque portrait of provincial Italy during the fascist period satirizes the director’s youth and turns daily life into a circus of social rituals, adolescent desires, male fantasies, and political subterfuge.

Giuseppe Tornatore's loving homage to the cinema tells the story of Salvatore, a successful film director, returning home for the funeral of Alfredo, his old friend who was the projectionist at the local cinema throughout his childhood. Soon memories of his first love affair with the beautiful Elena and all the highs and lows that shaped his life come flooding back.

In Italy during World War II, a widow and her lonely 13-year-old daughter seek distance between them and the horrors of war.