Vermiglio 2024

In 1944, two Italian deserters, Attilio and Pietro, return to Attilio’s home in a remote Trentino village, Vermiglio, seeking refuge from the war and the chaos it has left behind. The village hosts a small, one-room school led by a stern teacher, Cesare, who is Attilio’s uncle, while his wife Adele tends the household. They have just welcomed their ninth child, but the infant dies in infancy, echoing a prior loss and underscoring the family’s fragile fortunes.

Lucia, the couple’s eldest daughter, falls in love with Pietro, a Sicilian by origin. The romance deepens quickly, and Lucia becomes pregnant, with Pietro agreeing to marry her. Their plans are complicated by the presence of a cautious aunt, Zia Cesira, who notices that Lucia is already pregnant before the wedding and weighs the cultural and religious expectations that press upon the young couple. As the story unfolds, the community’s rhythms—school life, Catholic traditions, and the day-to-day struggles of Lucia’s siblings—merge with Adele’s mounting difficulties in feeding a large, under-supported family, all under Cesare’s stern, watchful authority.

As war’s end nears, Pietro returns to Sicily with the hope of telling his loved ones that he survived and of reuniting with them soon, promising to write and return. Yet the news that reaches Vermiglio via the press shatters that hope: Pietro is said to have been already married to a Sicilian woman and has been killed by her. The revelation devastates Lucia, who has already given birth to Antonia, the child she bore from Pietro. In the wake of this blow, Lucia sinks into despair, rejects the newborn, and even contemplates suicide, a crisis only marriageable loyalty from her brother Dino can begin to ease.

During her slow recovery, Lucia travels to Sicily in search of closure, where she encounters Pietro’s first wife and visits Pietro’s grave, confronting the tangled web of love, loyalty, and loss that surrounds the family. Meanwhile, the child is placed in an orphanage, where Ada—Lucia’s younger sister who has become a nun—works among the orphans, blending duty with compassion. In the end, Lucia makes a decisive move: she heads for the city to work for a wealthy family, determined to stabilize her life for the sake of her child, while promising herself that she will return later to reclaim her place in Antonia’s life.