Italiencele

Set in today's rural Romania, a culture that seems to resist change despite the provocations of recent history, 'The Italian Girls' tells the tale of 2 young women who decide they will find a better life picking strawberries in Spain.

This is a wonderful social comedy. 'The Italian Girls' is a touching film that avoids sentimentality and a political film that avoids extremism or earnestness. The writer/director, Napoleon Helmis has a light touch and a gift for dialogue. The cast create a world that is both real and comic, held together by Mara Nicolescu's (Jeni) spirited central performance.

I laughed and I cried during the film and when I left the cinema I was moved enough to look it up on IMDb and write a review about it! A new cinema with old values seems to be emerging out of Romania, and Napoleon Helmis is definitely one to watch.