Synopsis

When Ciccitta Lampis dies, she leaves behind her granddaughter Lia and daughters Ruth, Ester, and Noemi in dire financial straits. After much deliberation, the only possible solution seems to be the sale of number twenty, a building on the town's main street that has been owned by the family for generations. But the arrival of Giorgio Albert from Paris will upend all plans: before his death, Ciccitta had signed a lease with him to open a bookstore there. The folly of the project outrages the entire town: too few people read in Santa Gisa for it to be a success. Against the backdrop of a small town in southwest Sardinia, number twenty will become a crossroads of novels and lost traditions that will not only remind the Lampis family how much of their history they have set aside, but will also bring the impetuous winds of change to a community that has forgotten itself. One hundred and fifty years after the birth of Grazia Deledda, Mezzo giro di velluto pays homage to the atmosphere and characters of Reeds in the Wind, recounting with a touch of magical realism the thin veil that separates life and death.