Synopsis

Palermo, 1938. While her peers marry and raise children, Jolanda zips through the fields on her bicycle, wearing her brother's trousers, her hair blowing in the wind, and her camera constantly slung over her shoulder. She wants to be free, but she knows that for a woman in Sicily, freedom is made up of small, secret conquests: like the poems she writes under a false name and hangs on the city walls, or the photojournalist work her father allows her to do while she waits for her wedding ring. Meanwhile, Europe is shaken by racial laws and the threat of a new war. Dreaming of a different life seems impossible, but fate holds an unexpected opportunity for her: a ticket to Tokyo paid for by a mysterious benefactor. Thus, seemingly by chance, Jolanda stumbles upon the story of O'Tama Kiyohara, an extraordinary Japanese painter who spent over fifty years in Palermo for love, creating with her works an invisible bridge between the two islands of her heart. Her encounter with O'Tama and Japan will be a new beginning for her. Observing the elegance of kimonos, the solemnity of Mount Fuji, and the grace of plum blossoms, she will discover a land of beauty and tradition, and through her lens, she will have the opportunity to see nature, art, and femininity with new eyes.