Synopsis

Secondigliano. Stephanie is ten years old, and every time she comes home she complains to her mother that her cousins ​​play outside and she doesn't. The reason is simple: they can because they're boys, while she's a girl. After school, she sits down to read on the balcony, the only outdoor space she's allowed. Stephanie studies and studies because she knows that words are her only defense against the world. Her grandmother told her this during the afternoons spent at her house, two floors below in the same building: "Everything is more difficult for girls. You have to learn to defend yourself. You must always have the courage to speak up, Stephanie." And if she says so, it must be so. After all, her grandmother is Nannina de Gennaro, known as Nannina la Cuntastroppole, the storyteller. To some, she's just a crazy old woman; to others, she's the one who, thanks to her cunti, the tales recited in the courtyards, gave an identity and dignity to mothers worn out by poverty and the arrogance of men. With her stories, Nannina gave a face to those who didn't have one, she redeemed the weakest, she made them laugh and cry. But now it's up to Stephanie to regain her voice, to seek redemption in her stories, her own redemption, that of a girl with a dream: to study and discover freedom. Stefania Spanò takes us to the heart of a reality where, through the alleys, courtyards, and squares, the echo of traditions can still be heard. The echo of a past that has never truly passed. The echo of a language that is music. The echo of gestures and movements that turn every place into an open-air theater. Two protagonists, two generations, two different Secondiglianos who meet and clash. One thing never changes: the importance of words and stories. Today as then.