Vermiglio (2024), BBCiplayer, screenwriter and director Maura Delpero.

Vermiglio (2024), BBCiplayer, screenwriter and director Maura Delpero.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002xkf7/vermiglio

Vermiglio is a place and time. Towards the end of the Second World War, 1944-45, two deserters came to hide in the remote Alpine village. One is a local boy. The other Pietro (Giuseppe De Domenico), a Sicilian deserter. They are hid among the chickens.

At the centre of village life is the Graziadei family — Cesare (Tommaso Ragno), the stern, disciplinary schoolteacher. Adele (Roberta Rovelli), his exhausted wife, forever pregnant and with enough children to fill a school room.

Lucia (Martina Scrinzi), their eldest daughter, navigates adolescence in a house overflowing with siblings, rivalry, and unspoken expectations. There’s a wonderful scene when she’s almost caught masturbating but covers it up by saying she’s praying.

There’s not enough potatoes or enough to eat. Not enough anything. Not even men in the village or marriageable age. Pietro, with his shy ways, catches her eye. That changes everything. Mesmeric.