With the war finally over and the communists and the fascists vying for control of the bombed out streets of Napoli, "Antonietta" (Serena Rossi) makes a very difficult choice. She has nothing and that isn't likely to change, so when an opportunity comes tpo send her urchin of a child "Amerigo" (Christian Cervone) to a camp further north where at least he will be fed and cared for for one month, she decides to sign him up. Despite warnings from many of her neighbours that these are just political indoctrination camps he is despatched to meet and live with "Derna" (Barbara Ronchi). Both are initially very wary of the other, and "Amerigo" is all too used to doing what he wanted when he wanted - so any sort of discipline was going to be a struggle, but as he is warmly embraced by her and pretty much the entire village we begin to see signs of the real character emerging and it appears he might just have some talent with a violin! At the end of the month, it is time to go home but with his subsistence mother still no more capable of providing for him and with him finally knowing something of a mother's love elsewhere, what will the child do? This is told by way of a retrospective so we already know the answer to that, but for the most part this is still a touching and engaging portrayal of an enthusiastic young lad trying to grow up in a post-war Italy where he was but one of many o…

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