La Pivellina 2009

Filmmakers Covi and Frimmel successfully translate their documentary techniques into this remarkable cinema vérité feature. Using natural lighting and background sound, the duo cast non-actors - circus performers who live in trailer parks outside of Rome - and capture their community's joys, laughs and heartbreaks with astonishing authenticity. But this is a fiction film, and it revolves around middle-aged Patty and a little girl she finds one day in a playground.