Bellas mariposas

Caterina (11) lives in a sombre, poverty-stricken neighbourhood of Cagliari, capital of Sardinia. She has a tyrannical father and a horde of brothers and sisters, most of whom are up to no good. And yet the girl is in a good mood. She talks openly - occasionally straight into the camera - about her love for Gigi, the boy next door, and her bond with her best friend Luna.
Pretty Butterflies, based on a story by Sergio Atzeni, follows a day in Caterina's life: the day on which she fears for Gigi because her brother Tonio has just threatened to kill him, and discovers that Gigi is in love with the local slut.
But it is also the day when Caterina and Luna go to the beach, eats lots of ice cream, giggle and swim. In the best Italian tradition of films like Brutti, sporchi e cattivi and the recent Gomorrah, Salvatore Mereu shows poverty and misery, but thanks to Caterina's gaze, the film is also a contemporary version of Zazie dans le métro - filled with youthful recklessness and unruffled optimism.