Prendimi e portami via

The marriage between the painter Valeria and her husband, who live in the suburbs of an anonymous Italian city, is coming to an end. This is not the only narrative line in this film. It also looks at the teenage love between the son of Valeria and a Gypsy girl and at the problematical relationship between the Gypsy community and the local inhabitants. The parents primarily focus on their own relationship, as a result of which their son lives in a world of his own. He finds a kindred spirit and a companion in a Gypsy girl in his class who lives in a caravan opposite the house. The two teenagers, both rather lonely and unworldly, often eat and drink together. The relationship between the `Gadjo’ boy and the Gypsy girl gives rise to hatred and eventually a pogrom in the community, where the encounter between two very different groups turns out badly. The Gypsy girl wants to be `taken away’ by the boy when she hears that her father has given her hand in marriage to her uncle after losing a game of cards. However he doesn’t understand what she means. Nevertheless, he decides to go looking for the girl after she is chased away. This is the fourth film by Tonino Zangardi, the only Italian film maker of Roma origins. He made a great success of sketching a realistic picture of today’s reality for Roma integration in his own country.