Corpo Celeste

The outskirts of an Italian city. Ancient palazzi sit alongside crumbling building sites. There’s a dried-up riverbed and a half-finished motorway. Thirteen-year-old Marta surveys the unappealing and alien surroundings with startled eyes. This is where she was born and this is where she has returned, together with her mother and her older sister, after spending the last 10 years living in Switzerland. Marta’s confirmation is just around the corner. The preparations for the ceremony are left to Santa, the monosyllabic and inhibited catechist, who rattles off her Catholic doctrines to a teenager who has no understanding of her own needs or feelings. Marta observes the church ritual with a distanced and sceptical eye.