13 year old Marta who is struggling to resettle to the south of Italy after ten years growing up in Switzerland. Bright-eyed and restless, she observes the sights, sounds and smells of the city but feels very much an outsider. Marta is about to undergo the rite of confirmation and she takes catechism but confronts the morality of the local Catholic community. From experiencing her period to making a bold decision to cut her hair, Marta begins to shape her own life for the first time since moving back to Italy.

"Between fiction and documentary, remaining as close as possible to her characters, Alice Rohrwacher directs with a delicate sensibility the frailty and contradictions of a young adolescent girl."

Marzena Moskal, selection commitee