With the ruins of the war now behind her, Karin hastily marries a fisherman whose name she barely knows in order to escape the internment camp. In this rugged corner of the Italian countryside, life bears no resemblance to anything she has ever known. This harrowing drama by Roberto Rossellini shows, in its simplest form, how the land and the sea can trap a person. The stone houses rising in the shadow of an extinct volcano and the unfamiliar faces constantly out hunting for tora gradually become suffocating cages for Karin. The islanders’ strict rules and the sense of isolation drive this forced marriage into a dead end, while nature’s crushing silence weighs heavily on the woman’s shoulders.

2 wins & 1 nomination