The Night of the Shooting Stars

A woman recounts a memory from her childhood during the final days of the Second World War in Tuscany, when a group of Italian villagers defied the German-ordered evacuation and set out on foot to find the advancing American forces. The journey brings them into violent conflict with fascist neighbours, blurring the lines between liberation and tragedy. The story is framed as a bedtime tale told to a child, lending it the quality of a half-remembered dream filtered through myth and folklore.