La strangera

To take one’s life and go – to understand oneself, to find a future, not to go down but to stay. These are the reasons why Beatrice leaves Turin one morning in May to go to the mountains. The mountains that, she is sure, are women, even if they often have male names. Women like her, who, as soon as she arrives at the refuge of Barba, a gruff man with a mysterious past, feels rejected as a smoker and a stranger. Marta Aidala has the courage of a clear voice that makes gestures and events speak, the sounds of the forest, the smells, the light of a sky high above the peaks. And she knows how to tell a new epic in the most concrete details, the epic of a girl who, despite her hesitations and fears, goes in search of her freedom, a girl who searches for herself on the paths and among the men of the mountains, in a world that she feels belongs to her, even if the old traditions look at her with suspicion. With fear and curiosity, Elbio looks at her, the young shepherd with whom Beatrice will form a deep bond, made up of hesitations and impulses, in that fragile and touching intimacy that exists between two people who mirror and recognise each other. When the summer ends, however, Beatrice decides not to follow Elbio down into the valley, but to stay with the Beard at the refuge, a place she now perhaps feels she can call home. But the winter without snow will reveal to her an unexpected mountain, forcing her to question everything and to ask herself once again about her future, the person she wants to be and the place where she feels she belongs.