Synopsis

In a working-class suburb of Milan, a woman of Southern Italian origins is arrested for prostituting her daughter, Rosetta, an 11 year old girl. Antonio, a policeman, born in Sicily, is given the job of escorting Rosetta and her little brother, Luciano, down to a children’s home in Civitavecchia. The Two children, withdrawn and mistrustful, are refused admission in the institute. They continue southwards towards an ever more distant destination. The stages of their long journey are marked by the clashes and reconciliations of the three companions, who, between bouts of suspicion, violence and tenderness, form an alliance as though to protect each other from the outside world and from a South, which is rediscovered and unrecognisable.
THE STOLEN CHILDREN won the Grand Prize of the Jury at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival and received 6 David di Donatello and 2 Nastro d’Argento. According to critics: «We can’t imagine a more simple story but with so many complex implications like this movie […] the story flows naturally, without anything excessive and above all without simple rhetorical temptations».