Arsenali Medicei

Two young girls, a hot, stifling summer, the desire to run away from a small provincial town. Luisa is full of life, uninhibited, unconventional. Renata is dark, angry and in need of love. The lives of two young women is a tale of blackmail, of a love betrayed, of violence: Luisa uses her Albanian boyfriend, Bilal; Renata uses Luisa’s body to orchestrate her revenge. Both want to leave the small community where they have grown up among village festivals and independence gatherings, helpless families and new generations of migrants targeted by those who feel increasingly threatened. Luisa, Renata and Bilal will risk loosing themselves, loosing a precious part of themselves, of those they love, ultimately loosing their own lives.

Recreating a historical event that occurred in Rome on November 24, 1736, the film tells the story of two Jews who are arrested for burglary, tortured, and forced to confess. The Papal Tribunal sentences them to death by hanging.

While Puccini is totally engrossed with the composition of his opera La fanciulla del West, sexual intrigue swirls around him.