A Street in Palermo

A Sunday afternoon in Palermo, the heat unbearable. Rosa and Clara lose their way in the car and turn into a narrow street: Via Castellana Bandiera. At the same moment another car comes in from the opposite end, packed with the Calafiore family; old Samira is at the wheel. The street will not let two cars pass side by side. Neither will reverse, and they stay there. The stubbornness lasts hours and then runs on into the night. The neighbourhood starts watching, bets are laid, the men want to intervene, but the two women let nobody in between. Emma Dante both directs and plays Rosa; the source is her own novel. Elena Cotta, who plays Samira, was eighty-two and won the best actress prize at Venice in 2013, in a part where she barely speaks. Alba Rohrwacher is in the cast. All the tension in the film comes out of not moving.