Two Women

Vittorio de Sica co-writes and directs this Italian drama starring Sophia Loren. In 1943, at the height of the Second World War, widowed shopkeeper Cesira (Loren) leaves her grocery store in Rome to escape the bombing of the Allies. Along with her teenage daughter, Rosetta (Eleonora Brown), she heads for her native, rural village of Ciociaria. The road is long and arduous but when they arrive in the mountains, the women meet Michel Di Libero (Jean-Paul Belmondo), with whom Rosetta quickly falls in love. When the Allied troops eventually leave Italy, Cesira decides to return to Rome with her daughter only for them both to experience the horrors of war that they had hoped to escape. The film won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign-Language Foreign Film while Loren won a BAFTA and an Academy Award for her performance.