The Man Who Will Come 2009

Set in the winter between 1943 and 1944 in the Apennines, the film follows eight-year-old Martina, Greta Zuccheri Montanari, who lives with her parents and a large peasant family that toils every day to survive. Since the death of her younger brother, Martina has stopped talking, and this makes her the target of ridicule from her peers. Yet her observations are sharp and often profound, catching details that others miss.

World War II arrives with a more intrusive presence of German soldiers and bands of partisans in the hills. Martina’s mother Lena, Maya Sansa, becomes pregnant, and Martina follows the nine months of gestation with careful attention, while daily life continues in small tasks: washing clothes, weaving baskets in the stable, the slaughter of the pig, the flirtations of youths, and the rituals of first communion.

At the end of September 1944, Martina’s little brother is born at home.

At daybreak, the SS, supported by German troops, arrive in the hills and stage a ferocious roundup remembered as the Marzabotto massacre. Old people, women and children are murdered after being herded into cemeteries, churches, and farmhouses.

Martina, who has managed to escape, is discovered and locked in the small church of Cerpiano with dozens of others. After the doors are closed, the soldiers carry out the massacre.

Martina miraculously survives and returns home to find only empty rooms and silence. She takes the basket with her brother, whom she had hidden in a refuge in the woods, and finds shelter in the rectory of Don Fornasini.

After the massacre is complete, she tends to her brother by singing him a lullaby, and, in the process, slowly regains her voice.