Mariavittoria Cozzella

An English teacher at technical school in the outskirts of Rome knows that her twenty-four eighteen-year-old students do not consider her a human being, speak ill of her, are ready to contest her and feel a morbid curiosity towards her private life. Still, she tries to relate to them and the result of this effort is "a great love story". Cenciarelli describes the lessons (strictly in English, despite the students' protestations), the fights in and out of class, the students' tricks, their need to confront each other, their desire to show themselves superior, their weaknesses and their loneliness. As the seasons go by, the relationship between teacher and students becomes more complicated and deepens, alternating moments of great enthusiasm and great disappointment, until the baccalaureate exam, about which she cares more than they do.

Follow Teresa Iorio, a young woman who leaves her rural Sicilian hometown for Milan to find work--and much more--at a newly opened department store: The Ladies' Paradise.