Animals Crossing the Street

Colour, 35mm
Italy, 2000, 91 min
Section: Another View

Synopsis

Martina is fourteen and doesn’t know what to do: she lives with her mother but the latter has her own problems with her chaotic lifestyle and also another small child. Thus Martina takes to the streets of the town’s peripheries where, like her contemporaries, she survives by committing minor acts of fraud and theft. Her best friend is the slightly older Sciu who adores her and obeys her every command. He would do anything to get her to love him. Martina instinctively yearns for love but her mother’s example scares her. When she gets in trouble with the law, the girl is taken under the wing of social worker Giovanni and, soon afterwards, also the police commissioner Fiametta, entrusted with her case. Both want to help Martina but they come up against her distrust and distaste for the advice of adult. The commissioner, herself from a poor background, understands the girl but at the critical moment she is swayed by her commitment to the law.

About the director

Isabella Sandri (b. 1957, Rovigo) studied direction at the film college in Rome, Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia. After several shorts she made her first feature film in 1994, Upside Down World (Il mondo alla rovescia), screened at the 30th Karlovy Vary IFF. Together with Giuseppe M. Gaudino she filmed and produced a documentary film in 1997 about the Hutu refugees in Rwanda entitled Spirits from a Thousand Hills (Gli spiriti delle mille colline). In addition, she produced Gaudino’s film The Moon’s Journey between the Earth and the Sea (Giro di lune tra terra e mare) and co-directed with him the documentary film House of Lemons (La casa dei limoni, 1999) about Palestinian children.