I giorni di Vetro

Redenta is born on 10 June 1924, as Fascists are abducting Giacomo Matteotti in Rome. She grows up in Castrocaro, a village in Romagna a few kilometres away from Predappio, Mussolini’s birthplace. She is disabled, badly treated, mocked and illiterate. She has brief moments of happiness with her friend Bruno, who promises to marry her but then disappears for no apparent reason. One day, Vetro, the valiant, handsome high officer of the Fascist Party who lost an eye in the Ethiopian war decides to marry her. Redenta thinks that life is giving her a chance, but it’s the beginning of a harrowing tragedy. In fact, the cruel Vetro wants Redenta only to vent his violent, sadistic obsessions on this defenceless creature.Iris grows up in Tavolicci, a small village in the Appenines. Following the events of 8 September, she becomes a partisan in Diaz’s band. She is madly in love with Diaz. Iris hates violence, but when she hears that the Nazi-Fascists have wiped out her family and the entire village of Tavolicci in the bloodiest Nazi-Fascist carnage in the history of Romagna, she devises a crazy plan of revenge against Vetro, the Republican head of Castrocaro: she will pass herself off as a prostitute, become his lover and then have him abducted.The very different lives of these two women will intersect only for three days, when Iris is about to be killed by Vetro, who has discovered her true identity, and the submissive Redenta decides to free her.