It’s 1997. Linda is eight years old and she doesn’t have many teeth, but she does have a filthy-rich grandma and a beautiful, dangerous and disruptive mother. It’s only when she meets two children her own age, sisters Azzurra and Marta, that she learns how to become a child. This is the heartbreaking story explored in Le bambine, Valentina and Nicole Bertani’s fiction feature debut, which is the only Italian movie (and co-production between Switzerland and France) battling it out in the official competition of the 78th Locarno Film Festival, unspooling between 6 and 16 August.

Valentina Bertani first turned heads in 2022 in Venice’s Giornate degli Autori line-up, with her surprising documentary The Crown Shyness [+lee también:
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entrevista: Valentina Bertani
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Written by the directors alongside Maria Sole Limodio, the film’s cast stars Mia Ferricelli, Agnese Scazza and Petra Scheggia in their first screen appearances, supported by Clara Tramontano (of the TV series The Lions of Sicily and also featuring in Carolina Cavalli’s upcoming movie Il rapimento di Arabella), Milutin Dapčević (La chimera [+lee también:
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entrevista: Paolo Taviani
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Cinematography for Le bambine comes courtesy of Marco Bassano (I Am Not What I Am - The Tragedy of Othello di W. Shakespeare [+lee también:
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The feature is being produced by Daniele Esposito together with Emma Film (Italy), in co-production with Michela Pini for Cinédokké (Switzerland), Philippe Gompel and Birgit Kemner for Manny Films (France), Guillaume Marien for Mathematic (France), Marco Colombo for Adler Entertainment (Italy) and Nicola Rosada for 360 Degrees Film, with support from Italy’s Ministry for Culture, RAI Cinema, RSI, UFC, the Ticino Film Commission, the Mendrisio Film Fund, the Emilia Romagna Region and Lazio Cinema International.