Winter, 1943. Martina is 8 years old and lives on the slopes of Monte Sole, not far from Bologna. She is the only child of a peasant family who, like many, are struggling to get by. Years previously she lost her newborn brother and hasn’t spoken since.

In December her mother becomes pregnant again.

Months go by and the child grows in its mother’s womb. Martina anxiously awaits her brother’s arrival as the war gets closer and closer and life becomes more and more difficult. On the night of the 28th of September 1944, the baby is finally born.

Almost simultaneously the SS unleash an unprecedented reprisal in the area, which will go down in history as “The Marzabotto Massacre”.

Maya Sansa Lena

Alba Rohrwacher Beniamina

Claudio Casadio Armando

Greta Zuccheri Montanari Martina

Stefano Bicocchi il Signor Bugamelli

Eleonora Mazzoni la Signora Bugamelli

Orfeo Orlando il mercante

Diego Pagotto Pepe

Bernardo Bolognesi il partigiano Gianni

Stefano Croci Dino

Zoello Gilli Dante

Timo Jacobs Ufficiale medico SS

Germano Maccioni Don Ubaldo

Thaddaeus Meilinger Capitano SS

Francesco Modugno Antonio

Maria Grazia Naldi Vittoria

Laura Pizzirani Maria

Frank Schmalz Ufficiale Wehrmacht

Tom Sommerlatte Ufficiale SS

Raffaele Zabban Don Giovanni

An opportunity to reawaken the desire for peace, the need for dialogue and understanding; a voice given to the innocent people whose lives have been stolen, to the martyrs of the conflicts that, since then, have followed till this day, in order that the sacrifice of those victims might create in each man an urgent need for peace and everyone might begin to work toward the improvement of society as a whole.

Director's statement, Giorgio Diritti

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