Vermiglio

Shortlisted for the Academy Award in the Best International Feature category, this new Italian film follows a town, and the Graziadel family, in the waning years of World War II in the Italian Alps. Filmed with painterly grace under natural light from frigid winter to redemptive spring, the mountains provide the physical and emotional backdrop for this singular portrait of a sprawling family. When taciturn Sicilian soldier Pietro (Giuseppe De Domenico), comes to town to hide after deserting the army, he develops a romance with the family's eldest daughter, Lucia (Martina Scrinzi). Dividing the town, this relationship strains the pressure put on father and local schoolteacher Cesare (Tommaso Ragno) as he also deals with his wife’s tenth pregnancy, a daughter who is discovering her sexuality, and a son who chafes at being relegated to a life as a common laborer. Vermiglio shows the lives of a provincial family in a remote village suspended in time by the customs of a fading era. Conjuring stories from her own family’s past, Delpero creates a deeply personal and human tale that recalls the great neorealist movement in Italian cinema, but through Lucia’s perspective Vermiglio feels distinct and novel. 

Introduction by Elisabetta D'Amanda, Principal Lecturer in the Department of Modern Languages and Culture at the Rochester Institute of Technology.