The Stolen Children

The Stolen Children is a 1992 Italian film directed by Gianni Amelio. The film was selected as the Italian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 65th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee. Plot 11-year-old Rosetta and 9-year old Luciano live with their mother in the housing projects of Milan. Internal migrants from Sicily, they face prejudice in their adopted city. Their mother is unemployed and their father has long since abandoned them. For the past two years, the mother has hired her daughter out as a prostitute. The authorities raid the place and arrest the mother and a client. The children are destined to be sent to a Catholic orphanage in Civitavecchia, near Rome. Two carabinieri, the rookie Antonio and an older man named Grignani are assigned the thankless task of escorting the children there by train. Grignani walks out on Antonio at Bologna, leaving Antonio to complete the task alone. The children are unruly, often fighting or running off in different directions. Luciano is sickly, doesn't eat much and rarely speaks. Rosetta is cynical, rebellious and manipulative. When they arrive at the orphanage, the priest in charge tells Antonio that the children cannot stay because Rosetta's medical record is missing. Antonio suspects that they are using this as a pretext because of her background as a prostitute. Antonio calls Grignani at the number he provided and explains the situation, but Grignani is no help. Rather than contact his superiors for further instructions and expose his partner's misconduct, Antonio naively decides to take matters into his own hands and bring the children to another institute in their native Sicily. His plan immediately runs into problems when Luciano has an asthma attack on the way to the train station, causing them to miss the train. They spend an awkward night at the bachelor pad of a carabiniere acquaintance of Antonio's.